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 & GunThe 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:

  1. 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)
  2. 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.
  3. 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