Submissions for the 2026 Firecracker Awards will be accepted in fall 2025. See below for more information and guidelines.

2025 Firecracker Awards Winners

FICTION: Obligations to the Wounded by Mubanga Kalimamukwento, published by University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN-13: 978-0-8229-4836-0 | Distributor: Longleaf Services

From the Judges:

“Seldom does fiction so expertly capture the complications of queerness, family, dislocation, and culture. Obligations to the Wounded is a triumphant collection of unforgettable tales whose characters are as varied in identity as they are in experienced circumstances. With wit and cunning, the protagonists navigate the ever-present systems of oppression that encircle them and their relationships. Mubanga Kalimamukwento has written a stunning work of compassionate art worthy of our attention and emotions.”

Mubanga Kalimamukwento is the author of Obligations to the Wounded: Stories (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024). Kalimamukwento’s other books include The Shipikisha Club: A Novel (forthcoming from Dzanc Books, 2026), Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies: Poems (Wayfarer Books, 2025), unmarked graves (Tusculum University Press, 2022), and The Mourning Bird (Jacana, 2019). Her creative work has also appeared in adda, Aster(ix), Isele Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Kweli, Overland, on Netflix, and elsewhere. Kalimamukwento founded Ubwali Literary Magazine, co-founded the Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop, and serves as a mentor at the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.

The University of Pittsburgh Press, founded in 1936, publishes books in a wide range of scholarly and literary fields, including the Pitt Poetry Series, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, and, in rotation with other university presses, the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. The press sponsors the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, which recognizes one collection of short fiction each year.

CREATIVE NONFICTION: Low: Notes on Art & Trash by Jaydra Johnson, published by Fonograf Editions
ISBN-13: 979-8-9875890-7-6 | Distributor: NYU Press

From the Judges:

“Jaydra Johnson’s Low is formally inventive, bringing together art criticism and memoir, words and art into a meticulously crafted essay collection. In stunningly lyrical prose, Johnson pays a finely hewn attention to that which our wasteful, capitalistic society discards and collapses the dichotomies of high and low art. Johnson writes with a tenderness towards her subjects, but without sacrificing a direct, unflinching approach to her insights on class and waste. This book, as the interstitial pieces remind us, gives us new rituals for looking, exposing the casually oppressive structures of our society and imbuing trash with a newfound sense of purpose. Fonograf Editions has produced a gorgeous book to match with gorgeously formatted pages, and collaged interstitials that underscore the meaning and message of Johnson’s playful, powerful work.”

Jaydra Johnson is the author of Low: Notes on Art and Trash (Fonograf Editions, 2024), which was chosen by Maggie Nelson as the winner of the Fonograf Editions essay collection contest. Johnson is a writer, visual artist, and educator whose work has appeared in Oxford American, Epoch Review, Guernica, and Sedition magazines, among others. She currently writes the Cliff Notes column for Variable West.

Fonograf Editions, founded in 2016 and based in Portland, Oregon, is a nonprofit independent record label and publisher of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The press values the interdisciplinary, experimental, and unclassifiable and strives to bring to life works that resist, bend, and break expectations.

POETRY: Mirror Nation by Don Mee Choi, published by Wave Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-950268-93-1 | Distributor: Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

From the Judges:

“Don Mee Choi’s Mirror Nation is a virtuosic work exploring memory, loss, and grief inside the system of capitalist nation-states. Choi rearranges and expands language(s), numbers, signs, still and archival images in a project so singular that it expands the definition of poetry itself as it charts a poignant journey of meaning-making in the aftermath of empires’ repeated cycles of violence. Mirror Nation offers the best of what poetry can provide—a new way of seeing. Once you have read it, it will live in you and with you for the foreseeable future. Arriving at a crossroads in the American colonial project, this collection is both testament and testimony to the corrosive forces of empire.”

Don Mee Choi is the author of Mirror Nation (Wave Books, 2024). Choi’s other books include the National Book Award-winning collection DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020), Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016), The Morning News Is Exciting (Action Books, 2010), and several pamphlets of poems and essays. She is a recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim, Lannan, and Whiting Foundations, as well as the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. She has translated several collections of Kim Hyesoon’s poetry, including Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018), which received the International Griffin Poetry Prize.

Wave Books, founded in 2005 and based in Seattle, Washington, is an independent poetry press dedicated to publishing exceptional contemporary poetry, poetry in translation, and writing by poets. Wave Books challenges the values and practices of readers and adds to the collective sense of what is possible in contemporary poetry.

MAGAZINES/BEST DEBUT: Revel
Distributor: Itasca Books

From the Judges:

“Coming to us from Atlanta, Revel dashes out of the gates as an assured, groundbreaking, and dynamic literary magazine. Publishing outstanding work in a range of poetic and prose styles from some of today’s most noteworthy luminaries and promising emerging writers, Revel prioritizes work that is sharp, clear, and urgent. Its elegant design further elevates the pleasure of reading a journal that should have a long and impactful trajectory.”

Revel, founded in 2024, is a biannual magazine published by Unbound Edition Press, and features new poetry, fiction, literary essays, criticism, and art. The magazine shares with its publisher the mission to respect and elevate emerging, underappreciated, and marginalized authors, with a strong commitment to advancing LGBTQ+ and BIPOC voices.

MAGAZINES/GENERAL EXCELLENCE: Circumference
Distributor: circumferencemag.com

From the Judges:

“Circumference is a thrilling reminder of how the reader is ultimately a citizen of the republic of arts and letters, an enduring place that encompasses the globe and welcomes every person. The representation of different languages in the table of contents alone hints at the beautiful conversation nurtured in its pages, as the journal introduces the hungry reader to compelling voices from an array of cultures and nations that they otherwise may have never known about. In its majestic offerings of poetry and prose, we find perspectives that inspire, challenge, and push the boundaries of what literature can be. At a time when finding commonalities among differences feels more important than ever, Circumference is indispensable.”

Circumference, founded in 2020, is a biannual journal of poetry, translation and international culture. Circumference publishes new translations of poetry, drama, and essays, particularly—but not exclusively—from contemporary authors in the belief that translation is a vital part of public and artistic discourse.