AWP George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature

Nominations for the 2026 AWP George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature open September 1, 2025, via this submission portal only. Letters of nomination will not be accepted via email or snail mail.

Nominations will be accepted until October 31, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Submit a letter of nomination September 1–October 31, 2025

Submission Guidelines

Criteria

The award will be given to a living individual who has demonstrated exceptional generosity and service to writers by excellent work in one or more of the following activities:

• teaching creative writing and literature
• serving as a mentor, supporter, or guide to writers
• publishing or editing literature, especially works by emerging talents
• building new resources that benefit writers (reading series, presses, awards, endowments, fellowships, stipends, programs, community centers, foundations, etc.)
• administering for programs or institutions that benefit writers or that expand audiences for contemporary authors
• working generally to make North America a more supportive place for contemporary literature and its makers

To receive the award, the recipient must be willing and able to travel to the annual AWP Conference & Bookfair during the year in which the award is conferred.

Eligibility Requirements

Any living individual who meets the above criteria may be nominated for the award, except for the following: members of the current AWP Board of Directors or AWP staff; family members of the AWP Board of Directors or AWP staff; and former AWP board members or AWP staff who served AWP within the last four years.

A former board member or staff member of AWP may be nominated for the award only after at least four years have lapsed between the deadline for nominations and their last official day of service to AWP. Previous recipients of the award may not be nominated or considered. Self-nominations will not be considered.

Letters of Nomination

Anyone, nonmember or member of AWP, may submit a letter of nomination. Letters of nomination should be no longer than two pages, single-spaced, and submitted in PDF format. Nomination letters should feature the following:

• an explanation of how your nominee fulfills the criteria cataloged above
• specificity—please note where the nominee did good works, length of service, names of writers helped, or detailed descriptions of what your nominee did or built in support of writers
• attribution—your name, return address, and signature must appear on your letter

Letters of nomination will remain in active consideration for three years—that is, for three cycles of the process of adjudication. If you submit your letter in 2024, for instance, your letter of nomination will remain active until the end of the 2027 cycle of deliberations.

Award

Contemporary literature and AWP have benefited from the efforts of many teachers, writers, editors, and administrators who have done their utmost to help the next generation of writers find their way as artists and as literary professionals. In bestowing the annual George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature, AWP recognizes a few of those individuals who have made notable donations of care, time, labor, and money to support writers and their literary accomplishments.

The award is named for George Garrett (1929–2008), who made exceptional contributions to his fellow writers as a teacher, mentor, editor, friend, board member, and good spirit. Garrett served for many years as the editor of Intro, an annual anthology of work by emerging writers; he served as one of the founding members of the AWP Board of Directors; he taught creative writing and literature for more than forty years; and he authored more than thirty books. As a writer, teacher, mentor, editor, or inspiration, Garrett helped many young writers who are now major contributors to contemporary letters. The award includes a $2,000 honorarium, in addition to travel, accommodations, and registration to attend AWP's annual conference, where the award is publicly announced and conferred.