Writers for Writers Award
The Writers for Writers Award celebrates authors who have given generously to other writers or to the broader literary community. The award is presented each year at Poets & Writers’ annual gala. Recipients of the 2026 Writers for Writers Award, which will be presented on March 23, 2026, are Tina Chang, Khaled Hosseini, and Eugene B. Redmond.
Poet Tina Chang is being recognized for her tireless advocacy for poetry and for writers. Among her many acts of service to the poetry community are her decade-plus tenure as Brooklyn Poet Laureate, the establishment of the poet-in-residence program at the Brooklyn Public Library, work to connect the Asian American and African American writing communities in collaboration with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Cave Canem, and her partnership with the Community-Word Project to connect student writers and teaching artists. In addition, Chang established the Meet the Author program in New York City public schools to advocate for underrepresented children’s book authors. She is the author of the poetry collections Hybrida (W. W. Norton, 2019), which NPR named “one of the most important books of poetry to come along in years,” as well as Of Gods & Strangers (Four Way Books, 2011), and Half-Lit Houses (Four Way Books, 2004). Co-editor of the 2008 Norton anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, she is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Laureate fellowship, as well as awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, among many others. She is a professor of English and director of creative writing at Binghamton University as well as a visiting professor at Harvard University. Her poetry collection Lion is forthcoming from W. W. Norton in September 2026. (Credit: Beowulf Sheehan)
Poet Eugene B. Redmond will be honored for his decades of generous advocacy and support for other writers, and for his profound influence on generations of Black writers. An emeritus professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Redmond was named Poet Laureate of East St. Louis in 1976, the year his groundbreaking study Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry (Anchor Press) was published. His books of poetry include The Eye in the Ceiling (Writers and Readers Publishing, 1991), In a Time of Rain and Desire (Black River Writers, 1973), and his collected works, Arkansippi Memwars: Poetry, Prose & Chants 1962–2012 (Third World Press, 2017). A key figure of the Black Arts Movement, Redmond edited several posthumous collections of Henry Dumas’s work with support from Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Amiri Baraka. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and two American Book Awards, Redmond is a beloved poet, photographer, and mentor who has shaped generations of artists worldwide. (Credit: Courtesy of Eugene B. Redmond)
Novelist Khaled Hosseini was selected for his outspoken opposition to book bans and championing of free speech protections, as well as his humanitarian assistance to the vulnerable Afghan communities he writes about through the Khaled Hosseini Foundation. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965, and was granted political asylum in the U.S. in 1980, after the Soviet invasion of his birthplace. Khaled studied medicine and practiced as a physician in California until 2004, after which he dedicated himself to writing. He is the author of The Kite Runner (Riverhead Books, 2003), A Thousand Splendid Suns (Riverhead Books, 2007), and other books. Hosseini has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, since 2006. (Credit: Haris Hosseini)
Editor’s Award
The Editor’s Award recognizes book editors who have made an outstanding contribution to the publication of poetry or literary prose over a sustained period of time.
The 2026 recipient is Jordan Pavlin, executive vice president, publisher, and editor in chief at Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday publishing group at Penguin Random House. Authors with whom Pavlin has worked include Maggie O’Farrell, Michelle Zauner, Kaveh Akbar, Jenny Offill, Susan Minot, Ethan Hawke, Karen Russell, Maggie Shipstead, Julie Orringer, Yaa Gyasi, Sue Monk Kidd, Nathan Englander, Dinaw Mengestu, Tommy Orange, Megha Majumdar, Tayari Jones, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Daniyal Mueenuddin. (Credit: Elena Seibert)
These awards will be presented on March 23, 2026, at the Poets & Writers Gala, In Celebration of Writers. Learn more here.
Previous Award Winners
2025
Kimberly Blaeser
Angie Cruz
Kiese Laymon
Morgan Entrekin, Elisabeth Schmitz, and Peter Blackstock (Editor’s Award)
2024
Laurie Halse Anderson
Roxane Gay
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Mitchell Kaplan (Champion for Writers Award)
2023
Colin Channer
Reyna Grande
Celeste Ng
Jennifer Hershey (Editor’s Award)
2022
Viet Thanh Nguyen
James Patterson
Sonia Sanchez
Sally Kim (Editor’s Award)
2020
Michael Chabon
Amanda Gorman
Oprah Winfrey (Leadership Award)
2019
Reginald Dwayne Betts
Neil Gaiman
Roxana Robinson
Dawn Davis (Editor’s Award)
2018
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Steve Cannon
Richard Russo
Rebecca Saletan (Editor’s Award)
2017
Francisco Goldman
Ann Patchett
Richard Shelton
Fiona McCrae (Editor’s Award)
Jeff Shotts (Editor’s Award)
2016
Elizabeth George
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Christopher Soto, and Javier Zamora
Erin Belieu, Cate Marvin, and Ann Townsend
Paul Slovack (Editor’s Award)
2015
Margaret Atwood
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Christopher Castellani
Barbara Epler (Editor’s Award)
2014
Ian Frazier
Haki R. Madhubuti
Joyce Carol Oates
Kate Medina (Editor’s Award)
2013
Steve Berry
Rigoberto Gonzalez
Judith Kelman
Chuck Adams (Editor’s Award)
Leonard Riggo (Leadership Award)
2012
David Baldacci
Kwame Dawes
Carol Muske-Dukes
Kathryn Court (Editor’s Award)
2011
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
John Grisham
Elizabeth Nunez
Jonathan Galassi (Editor’s Award)
2010
Junot Díaz
Maxine Hong Kingston
M. L. Liebler
Pat Strachan (Editor’s Award)
2009
Russell Banks
Robert Caro
Sarah Gambito
Daniel Halpern (Editor’s Award)
2008
Toi Derricotte
A.M. Homes
Peter Straub
2007
E. Ethelbert Miller
Francine Prose
Susan Richards Shreve
2006
Regie Cabico
Bill Henderson
Anna Quindlen
2005
Barbara Kingsolver
Sidney Offit
Quincy Troupe
2004
Judy Blume
Oakley Hall
Sharon Olds
2003
Bob Holman
Ishmael Reed
Amy Tan
2002
E. Lynn Harris
June Jordan
Wally Lamb
2001
Cornelius Eady
Marita Golden
Scott Turow
1999
Stanley Kunitz
Barbara Goldsmith
Terry McMillan
1998
Edward Albee
E. L. Doctorow
Susan Sontag
1997
Rita Dove
Stephen King
Hilma Wolitzer
1996
Mary Higgins Clark
James A. Michener
Arthur Miller
Walter Mosley
William Styron