Story Circle Network is pleased to announce the winners of the
2025 Sarton and Gilda Women's Book Awards.
2025 SARTON AWARD WINNERS
MEMOIR: The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir by Maureen Stanton (DLJ Books at Columbia State University Press)
HISTORICAL FICTION: A Family of Good Women by Teddy Jones (Stoney Creek Publishing)
CONTEMPORARY FICTION: Life of Her by Elizabeth Conte (Jane Writes Press)
NONFICTION: Queen of Bohemia Predicts Own Death: Gilded-Age Journalist Zoe Anderson Norris by Eve Kahn (Fordham University Press)
2025 GILDA PRIZE WINNER:
Giving Up the Ghost: A Daughter's Memoir by Samantha Rose (Sibylline Press)
The Sarton Award honors May Sarton, who is remembered for her contributions to women's literature as a memoirist, novelist, and poet. Sarton memoirs, novels, and nonfiction books are distinguished by the compelling ways they honor the lives of women and girls and are limited to books published by independent authors and publishers.
The Gilda Prize honors comedian Gilda Radner. The Gilda prize is open to humorous writing that dares to tell the truth with heart, wit, and originality. These are stories that make us laugh out loud—even when they break our hearts—and that stay with us because they’re fearless, funny, unmistakably real, and always kind (even when satiric).
The 2026 competitions are now open.
From its beginning in 1997, Story Circle Network has been dedicated to helping women share the stories of their lives through memoir, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama, and to raising public awareness of the importance of women's personal histories. The organization carries out its mission through publications, webinars, classes, conferences, workshops, competitions, writing and reading circles, book reviews, and woman-focused programs.
The Women's Book Awards are sponsored by Story Circle Network, an international nonprofit association of women writers.
The Sarton and Gilda competitions are open for nomination of books by women authors published in English in the United States and Canada. The awards are limited to submissions originally written in English and published by independent publishers, university presses, and author-publishers (self-publishing authors) with editorial offices headquartered in North America. Nominations of works from/about women of color and LBT+ women are welcome in all categories. Anyone, including the author, may nominate one or more books in multiple categories.
Professional librarians not affiliated with SCN select the winners from finalists chosen by first round jurors. Winners and finalists will be announced in April of the following year via social media, on the Story Circle Network website, and to SCN’s extensive email list.
- Winners of the Sarton & Gilda Awards receive a $100 cash prize, a commemorative award plaque, gold award seal stickers and a digital seal, promotion via SCN’s eletters, Journal, and website, a one-year SCN membership, a one-year listing in the SCN Members’ Library, free admission to SCN’s national conference (virtual or onsite), and an invitation to speak on our Virtual Award Winners Panel.
- Finalists receive silver award seal stickers and a digital seal, a one-year extension of their SCN membership, a one-year listing in the SCN Members’ Library, and an invitation to submit a proposal for SCN’s virtual conference.
Early Bird Entry: $90 through July 31; regular entry fee $110 August 1 – October 31.
The 2026 competitions are now open.
Complete guidelines can be found here.
2025 SARTON FINALISTS
Memoir
- The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir by Maureen Stanton (DLJ Books at Columbus State University Press, 2025)
- The Old Moon in Her Arms: Women I Have Known and Been by Lorri Neilsen Glenn (Nimbus Publishing, 2024)
- Radiance of the Ordinary: Essays on Life, Death, and the Sinews that Bind by Tara Couture (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2025)
- Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless by Tamara Dean (University of Minnesota Press, 2025)
- Words Make a Way Through Fire by Cyra Sweet Dumitru (She Writes Press, 2025)
Contemporary Fiction
- Devil's Hand by Lori Duff (She Writes Press, 2025)
- Jessica Harmon Has Stepped Away by Reyna Marder Gentin (Ten16 Press, 2025)
- Life of Her by Elizabeth Conte (Jane Writes Press, 2025)
- Satellite Image by Michelle Berry (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers, 2024)
- The Self-Made Saint by Alexandra Addams (High Frequency Press, 2025)
- Wildflowers by Meri Robie (Watertower Press, 2025)
Historical Fiction
- Bessie: A Novel by Linda Kass (She Writes Press, 2023)
- Climbing To The Sun by Shelley Burchfield (BeanPress, 2023)
- Dancing Woman by Elaine Orr (Blair Publishing, 2025)
- A Family of Good Women by Teddy Jones (Stoney Creek Publishing, 2025)
- An Unlikely Prospect: A World War II Novel by Shelley Blanton-Stroud (She Writes Press, 2025)
Nonfiction
- Elephants in the Hourglass by Kim Frank (Pegasus Books, 2025)
- Oh No He Didn't! Brilliant Women and the Men Who Took Credit for Their Work by Wendy J. Murphy (Cynren Press, 2024)
- Queen of Bohemia Predicts Own Death: Gilded-Age Journalist Zoe Anderson Norris by Eve Kahn (Fordham University Press, 2025)
- When Women Get Sick: An Empowering Approach for Getting the Support You Need by Rebecca Bloom (Broadleaf Books, 2025)
2025 GILDA FINALISTS
- Diary of a Dogcatcher by Sandra Kay (Prairie Moon Press, 2025)
- Giving Up the Ghost: A Daughter's Memoir by Samantha Rose (Sibylline Press, 2025)
- Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare by Michelle Ephraim (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024)
See previous winners here.
