LOUISE MERIWETHER FIRST BOOK PRIZE
ANNOUNCING THE 2023 WINNER!
The Feminist Press and distinguished judges Margot Atwell, Lupita Aquino, Bridgett M. Davis, Nancy Jooyoun Kim, and Cassandra Lane are honored to award the 2023 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize to Annell López for her short story collection I’ll Give You a Reason. López’s winning manuscript explores the lives of immigrants and first-generation Americans in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. In her debut work, López explores race, political unrest, sexuality, religion, body image, Blackness, colorism, gentrification, and more, delivered in vivid prose. The book will be published by the Feminist Press in spring 2024.
Image: Annell López
“López possesses an uncanny ability to get inside the heads and hearts of all the players—opponents and allies alike—in stories about immigration, sexuality, gentrification, and that ever-elusive American dream,” said judge and 2020 Prize winner Cassandra Lane. Adds writer Bridgett M. Davis, “I’ll Give You a Reason thrums with richly drawn portrayals of Dominican immigrants rarely visible in our society. Annell López makes us see these complex, tough women and girls in their full humanity. Even as they chase an elusive American dream, these characters fight back in the ways they know how. And we can’t help but love them for it.”
All five Prize winners—YZ Chin (Though I Get Home), Claudia D. Hernández (Knitting the Fog), Melissa Valentine (The Names of All the Flowers), Cassandra Lane (We Are Bridges), and López—will appear on a panel to celebrate the Prize at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Seattle, WA on Friday, March 10.
Annell López is a Dominican immigrant. She is the author of the short story collection I’ll Give You a Reason, forthcoming in 2024 from the Feminist Press. A 2022 Peter Taylor fellow, her work has received support from Tin House and the Kenyon Review Workshops and has appeared in American Short Fiction, Michigan Quarterly Review, Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. López is an Assistant Fiction Editor for New Orleans Review and an MFA candidate at the University of New Orleans. She is working on a novel.
ABOUT THE LOUISE MERIWETHER FIRST BOOK PRIZE
The Louise Meriwether First Book Prize was founded in partnership with TAYO Literary Magazine in 2016 to honor author Louise Meriwether by publishing a debut work by a woman or nonbinary author of color. The prize is granted to a manuscript that follows in the tradition of Meriwether’s Daddy Was a Number Runner, one of the first contemporary American novels featuring a young Black girl as the protagonist. Meriwether’s groundbreaking text inspired the careers of writers like Jacqueline Woodson and Bridgett M. Davis, among many others. The prize continues this legacy of telling much-needed stories that shift culture and acts a springboard for new writers joining the industry.
The five winners of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize are:
Annell López (2023)—author of I’ll Give You a Reason
Cassandra Lane (2020)—author of We Are Bridges
Melissa Valentine (2019)—author of The Names of All the Flowers
Claudia D. Hernández (2018)—author of Knitting the Fog
YZ Chin (2017)—author of Though I Get Home
MEET THE 2023 Meriwether Prize Judges
Meet the 2020 Winner, Cassandra Lane
“WE ARE BRIDGES makes a stunning contribution to what must become our collective memory.”
The 2020 Meriwether First Book Prize winner is Cassandra Lane for her book, We Are Bridges. Lane is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. Lane received her MFA from Antioch University LA. Her stories have appeared in the New York Times's Conception series, the Times-Picayune, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and elsewhere. She is editor in chief of L.A. Parent magazine and formerly served on the board of the AROHO Foundation.
Photo: Wreiko Dawson
Meet the 2019 Winner, Melissa Valentine
“Lyrical and smart, with appropriate undercurrents of rage.”
The 2019 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize winner is Melissa Valentine, author of The Names of All the Flowers (Summer 2020). Valentine was born and raised in Oakland, CA. Her nonfiction has appeared in Guernica, Jezebel, Apogee, and BLACKBERRY, among others. Melissa is a graduate of the MFA program at Mills College.
Photo: Ira James Photography
Meet the 2018 Winner, CLAUDIA D. HERNáNDEZ
“How exciting that Hernández’s voice joins the canon of contemporary Latina stories.”
The 2018 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize winner is Claudia D. Hernández, author of Knitting the Fog (July 2019). Hernández was born and raised in Guatemala. She is a mother, photographer, poet, translator, and bilingual educator residing in Los Angeles. Hernández holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is the founder of the ongoing project Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color.
Meet the 2017 Winner, YZ CHIN
“A haunting, surprising, and rebellious collection that contains multitudes.”
The 2017 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize winner is YZ Chin, author of Though I Get Home (April 2018). Chin was born and raised in Taiping, Malaysia, and lives in New York. She works as a software engineer by day and writes by night.
YZ Chin
Interlinked stories trace postcolonial memory and political dissidence across the globe.
Thanks to our readers
Nanor Abkarian
F. Douglas Brown
Amber Butts
Zara Cannon-Mohammed
Duy Doan
Vanessa Genao
Lauren Gentry
Michaela Goss
Modupeh Jahamaliah
April Joseph
Susanna Kwan
Benedict Nguyen
Bel Poblador
Lanesha Reagan
Alisa Reynya
Kay Sohini
Brandi Spaethe
Miloni Vora
Maddie Wallace
Jade Wong-Baxter
And big thanks to longtime Prize supporter and friend Lis M. Sipin.
Thanks to our partners
Photos from the 2017 celebration!
“We celebrate and invest in extraordinary emerging writers from communities whose stories are often unheard or undersupported. The Prize creates space for fresh narratives that shift culture, inspire action, and expand our vision for the future.”
Get reading!
Cassandra Lane
A lyrical memoir reconstructing the lost history of a Black American family.
Melissa Valentine
Set in rapidly gentrifying 1990s Oakland, this memoir explores siblinghood, adolescence, and grief in a family shattered by loss.
Claudia D. Hernández
A young Guatemalan immigrant’s adolescence is shaped by her journey to the US.
YZ Chin
Interlinked stories trace postcolonial memory and political dissidence across the globe.
Louise Meriwether
"[A] tough, tender, bitter novel of a black girl struggling toward womanhood."