Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction
In 1952, The Historical Book Club established the prestigious Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction to honor the most captivating work of fiction penned by a North Carolina author each year. It’s a chance to shine a spotlight on the Tar Heel State’s literary talents and celebrate the power of storytelling.
The Sir Walter Raleigh Cup, inscribed with the names of the winners, is presented at the annual meeting of the NC Literary and Historical Association and is on permanent exhibition in the Division of Archives and History Department of Cultural Resources. Winners receive a replica statuette.
Join us in celebrating North Carolina’s literary heritage!
Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy is the winner of the 2024
Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction.
“[David Joy] is a man who sees his homeplace clearly and who writes like his hand was touched by God.” — The New York Times
A twelfth generation North Carolinian, David Joy grew up along the Catawba River, moved away at eighteen, and has spent the last 22 years 100 miles west in the mountains of Jackson County. Place-driven and deeply rooted to Appalachia, his work has been translated into six languages. In 2023, his debut novel was adapted to film starring Billy Bob Thornton and Robin Wright.
Pictured below: David Joy and Sir Walter Raleigh Award
Committee Chair Kimberly Heckman
Joy is the author of five novels, including Those We Thought We Knew (winner of the 2023 Willie Morris Award and the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Prize), When These Mountains Burn (winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award), The Line That Held Us (winner of the 2018 Southern Book Prize), The Weight of This World, and Where All Light Tends to Go (Edgar finalist for Best First Novel). His stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in a number of publications, most recently Garden & Gun, The New York Times Magazine, and TIME. He is also the author of the memoir Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey and a coeditor of Gather at the River: Twenty-Five Authors on Fishing, a book which raises money for the CAST For Kids Foundation.
Joy lives in Tuckasegee, North Carolina with his dog Edie Munster.
Criteria for Selection and Process for Submission
For a work to be eligible for consideration:
- It must be an original book published during the 12 months ending June 30th of the year for which the award is given. (i.e. published 7/1/24-6/30/25 for the 2025 award cycle)
- Its author must have maintained legal or physical residence or a combination of both in North Carolina for the three years preceding the close of the contest period.
- Three (3) copies of each entry must be submitted to to the Editor of the North Carolina Literary Review no later than July 15 of the year which the award is given.
In reaching a decision, a panel of judges will consider creative and imaginative quality, excellence of style, universality of appeal, and relevance to North Carolina and her people.
Find more information about the North Carolina Book Awards, including a listing of past winners, on the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association website.
Self published and subsidy published works will not be considered.
Click this link to be directed to the Nomination form.
THE SIR WALTER RALEIGH AWARD
FOR FICTION RECIPIENTS
1952 Paul Green – Entire Works
1953 Frances Gray Patton – The Finer Things of Life
Inglis Fletcher – Carolina Series – 7 Novels
1954 Ovid W. Pierce – The Plantation
1955 Frances Gray Patton – Good Morning, Miss Dove
1956 Frances Gray Patton – A Piece of Luck
1957 Doris Betts – Tall Houses in Winter
1958 Betty Smith – Maggie-Now
1959 Ernest Frankel – Band of Brothers
1960 Ovid W. Pierce – On a Lonesome Porch
1961 Frank Borden Hanes – The Fleet Rabble
1962 Reynolds Price – A Long and Happy Life
1963 Richard McKenna – The Sand Pebbles
1964 John Ehle – The Land Breakers
1965 Doris Betts – Scarlet Thread
1966 Heather Ross Miller – Tenants of the House
1967 John Ehle – The Road
1968 Sylvia Wilkinson – A Killing Frost
1969 Bynum Shaw – The Nazi Hunter
1970 Guy Owen – Journey for Joedel
1971 John Ehle – Time of Drums
1972 Daphne Athas – Entering Ephesus
1973 Fred Chappell – The Gaudy Place
1974 Doris Betts – Beasts of the Southern Wild and Other Stories
1975 John Ehle – Changing of the Guard
1976 Reynolds Price – The Surface of Earth
1977 Sylvia Wilkinson – Shadow of the Mountain
1978 Mary Sheppard – All Angels Cry
1979 Daphne Athas – Cora
1980 Guy Owen – The Flim-Flam Man and Other Stories
1981 Reynolds Price – The Source of Light
1982 Lee Zacharias – Lessons
1983 Lee Smith – Oral History
1984 Reynolds Price – Private Contentment
1985 John Ehle – Last One Home
1986 Reynolds Price – Kate Vaiden
1987 Marianne Gingher – Bobby Rex’s Greatest Hit
1988 Lawrence Rudner – The Magic We Do Here
1989 Lee Smith – Fair and Tender Ladies
1990 Allan Gurganus – Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All
1991 Kaye Gibbons – A Cure for Dreams
………. Peter Turchi – Magician
1992 Angela Davis-Gardner – Forms of Shelter
1993 John Russell – Favorite Sons
1994 Michael Parker – The Geographical Cure
1995 Tim McLaurin – Cured by Fire
1996 G D. Gearino – What the Deaf Mute Heard
1997 Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain
1998 Clyde Edgerton – Where Trouble Sleeps
1999 Charles F. Price – Freedom’s Altar
2000 Judy Goldman – The Slow Way Back
2001 Leah Stewart – Body of a Girl
2002 Allan Gurganus – Practical Heart: Four Novellas
2003 Pamela Duncan – Plant Life
2004 Margaret Maron – Last Lessons of Summer
2005 Lawrence Naumoff – A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow
2006 Ron Rash – The World Made Straight
2007 Doug Marlette – Magic Time
2008 Daniel Wallace – Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician
2009 Ron Rash – Serena
2010 Susan Kelly – By Accident
2011 Anna Jean Mayhew – The Dry Grass of August
2012 Charles Frazier – Nightwoods
2013 Terry Roberts – A Short Time to Stay Here
2014 Lee Smith – Guests on Earth
2015 Pam Durban – Soon
2016 Terry Roberts – That Bright Land
2017 Danny Johnson – The Last Road Home
2018 Wiley Cash – The Last Ballad
2019 Lee Zacharias – Across the Great Lake
2020 Katey Schultz – Still Come Home
2021 Jason Mott – Hell of a Book
2022 Valerie Nieman – In the Lonely Backwater
2023 Marjorie Hudson – Indigo Field