Nominations for the next awards open January 2025
Nomination open: January 9, 2024
Nomination deadline: March 1, 2024 at 5:00 pm EST
Eligibility
- All books must be written in the English language or must have been translated into the English language.
- English-language books must have a printed first U.S. copyright date of 2023. There may be some exceptions for English-language books published outside the U.S. Contact Nicholas Raines with questions at [email protected].
- Foreign-language books must have a printed first U.S. copyright date of 2023 for the English language translation.
- The book should focus on a central message of peace, broadly defined as increasing understanding between and among people. Peace may be addressed on any of several levels including family, communities, nations, ethnic groups, cultures, and religions.
- Nominations might include issues of human rights – universal rights that should apply to everyone – but must focus on peace. The prize is designed for works that characterize peace as ending or seeking to end conflict – personal, national or international – establishing concord between and among people showing the consequences of persons, nations or institutions that recklessly disrupt personal harmony or universal accord.
- The book must have significant and enduring literary value.
- The book must appeal to a variety of audiences.
Submission Requirements
- Nominators must complete the online entry form and submit the $100 nomination fee by March 1, 2024 by 5:00 pm EST. Nomination fees are payable using the following methods:
- Credit Card: Please choose this payment option in the form below to process your payment.
- Check: Please note that submissions are considered pending until the check payment is received. Please make the check payable to Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation (EIN: 20-2905129). Enclose a copy of the confirmation email of the nomination form with payment to ensure that we credit you properly.
Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation
P.O. Box 461, Wright Brothers’ Branch, Dayton, Ohio 45409-0461
937-298-5072
- Nominators must mail copies of each submitted book to the addresses provided to arrive on or before March 20, 2024. The Dayton Literary Peace Prize shall provide a list of addresses. Please do not send copies of the nominated book(s) until DLPP sends you the list of names and addresses to which copies should be sent.
- All entries should include biographies and pictures of entrants and these files can be uploaded in the submission form.
- If a nominated book is selected to receive the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, it is a mandatory requirement of acceptance that the author must attend the awards weekend activities on November 9-10, 2024, and the publisher must–at its expense–provide for the travel and accommodations of the author to attend the awards weekend. The DLPP understands that challenges may arise in cases where acceptance requires international travel. In this event, provisions for the travel portion may be negotiated between the publisher and the DLPP. The Dayton Literary Peace Prize will be awarded in a special, black-tie ceremony in the Schuster Performing Arts Center in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday, November 10, 2024 as the culmination of the awards weekend.
- If the publisher is aware of any significant concerns about the accuracy or fairness of a nominated book, the publisher should include copies or summaries of these concerns, as well as any retractions or explanations.
- Publisher and author agree that the decision of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Committee shall be final as to all matters, including eligibility, timeliness of submissions, and compliance with conditions.
Holbrooke Nominations
The Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke
Distinguished Achievement Award and Criteria
The Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award honors a writer who has produced an enduring body of writing on or connected to peace. Formerly known as the Lifetime Achievement Award, the recognition was renamed in honor of Ambassador Holbrooke after his death in 2010.
When Ambassador Holbrooke received the Dayton Peace Prize, the forerunner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, he advised us to pay annual tribute to the peace process and not let the world forget that peace can be forged with words. We are proud to recognize extraordinary writers whose work seeks to promote better understanding and harmony among people, cultures, and nations.
Winners of the DLPP Lifetime Achievement Award include Studs Terkel (2006), Elie Wiesel (2007), Taylor Branch (2008), Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (2009), and Geraldine Brooks (2010). Barbara Kingsolver (2011) was the first author honored with the Holbrooke Award, followed by Tim O’Brien (2012), Wendell Berry (2013), Louise Erdrich (2014), Gloria Steinem (2015), Marilynne Robinson (2016), Colm Tóibín (2017), John Irving (2018), N. Scott Momaday (2019), Margaret Atwood (2020-2021), and Wil Haygood (2022).
The prize includes a monetary award of $10,000.
The Criteria
Requirements for the Distinguished Achievement Award are the same as those for the other DLPP writing awards, although the Holbrooke Award recognizes the writer’s body of work, rather than a single book.
The Distinguished Achievement Award winner:
- Should have produced a body of enduring writing on or connected to the subject of peace, broadly defined as increasing harmony and understanding between and among people. Peace may be addressed as it applies to individuals, families, communities, nations, ethnic groups, cultures, and religions.
- Should enjoy national and international respect for the merit of his/her writing.
Members of the Panel
Kati Marton, Honorary Chair
Robert Taft, Governor of Ohio 1999-2007; Chair
Jeff Bruce, Writer; Former Editor of the Dayton Daily News
Sean Creighton, Chair, DLPP Board of Trustees; President, The New American Colleges and Universities; President, Washington Internship Institute
Geeta Kothari, Writer; Nonfiction Editor of the Kenyon Review
Carol Loranger, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs,
Wright State University
Vick Mickunas, Book Reviewer
Sharon Rab, Founder, DLPP
Sharon Kelly Roth, Director of Public Relations, books&co
Jon Sebaly, Attorney; Independent Bookstore Owner
Andrew Slade, Chair, Department of English,
University of Dayton
Winona Wendth, Writer and Editor; Adjunct Professor of the Humanities, Quinsigamond Community College; Founding Member, Seven Bridge Writers’ Collaborative
Nominations Come From the Following Sources
- The panel members
- The Nominating Academy, which is composed of former winners and former judges, independent bookstore owners, magazine and book editors.
- The University Consortium, which is composed of professors and librarians from the participating universities.
Judging Process
The Dayton Literary Peace Prize has a dual nature: it is a peace prize; it is a literary prize. We designed the judging process to honor books whose writers focused on peace with clarity and style. We were also looking for books that would endure the test of time and would appeal to a wide audience.
Each year we identify a spectrum of First Readers who have the expertise to recognize literary quality and the judgment to evaluate each book’s contribution to peace. Our first readers range in age from their twenties to their seventies. They represent a number of ethnic groups, races, and religions. They are librarians, professors, journalists, former generals, and peace activists. They are history and literature majors. They had to have the most difficult job—narrowing the full field to the few best books to be sent on to the Final Judges.
Each First Reader is responsible for reading and evaluating six books. They are asked to both rate and rank the books using a rubric, to comment on how the books related to the criteria, and to pull quotes that illustrated theme or demonstrated style and language.
Their recommendations are sent on to the Final Judges, four award-winning writers. Our Final Judges read and evaluate the selections and determine which of the many fine books best fit our criteria of a dual focus on peace and high literary quality. We then evaluate the comments and rankings of the Final Judges to determine our winners and runners-up.
We could not be more pleased with the selections these dedicated readers and judges make, and we work to ensure that the books will find their way to homes and libraries throughout the world.
Final Judges List
For more information about our judges, please visit the Award Winners page and click on the year they judged the Prize.