The 2026 North Carolina Book Award recipients have been announced.

The fiction prize is going to Joshua Trent Brown for his debut novel "The Walls Are Closing In On Us."

The nonfiction category winner is Judkin Browning for “Deserter Declarations: Letters from North Carolinians Who Abandoned Their Confederate Units.” Browning is a professor of military history at Appalachian State University.

Prizes are also being awarded for poetry, young people’s literature, history, and dramatic arts.

Margaret Bauer is the editor of the North Carolina Literary Review and manages the Book Awards. Bauer says she has one message for everyone who submitted their work.

"Thank you," Bauer says. "We are still receiving such wonderful literature. They are still bringing these stories and poems to us. We need that in these times. And remember that these are the kinds of works that spread empathy and understanding."

The North Carolina Book Awards ceremony will be held in Raleigh on Dec. 4.

A complete list of winners can be found here.