Meet the Best Debut Novelists of 2026

In September, the Center for Fiction announced the shortlist for their annual First Novel Prize, judged this year by R. Kwon, Kiese Laymon, Jordy Rosenberg, and Danzy Senna. The shortlisted authors will each be awarded $1,000, and the winner, who will be announced in December, will receive $15,000 “in recognition of their contribution to contemporary literature and in support of their ongoing creative career.” In the meantime, Literary Hub caught up with the finalists to ask them a few questions about their reading and writing lives.

Here’s what they told us: What time of day do you work (and why)? I take notes throughout the day, but six in the morning is best for the sustained work. Unfortunately, this year has been the first in a while where I just can’t seem to get up.

I’ve been trying to work on this, through baby steps. My current tactic: my chihuahua has no trouble getting up at six to pee, and she always taps (slaps) me or Chris on the cheek to let us know. When it’s my cheek, I typically sleepwalk her out the back door, watch her go, and then the two of us get right back into bed where we both fall right back asleep until eight (when she’s ready for breakfast).

The baby step I’ve been working on this week is to just try and stay awake after the dog pees. I’ve told myself: it’s okay to get back into bed with Crackers, as long as I keep my eyes open until the radio turns on at seven. A trick: I’ve put my cooling caffeine under-eye patches on my bedside for immediate application.

We also hung a birdfeeder in the window. Sunrise drives are also a great way to gently reacquaint yourself with those precious early hours, so rich for writing and full of new sights. Chris and I went on one last Wednesday.

It yielded a lot of good things: We saw a rooster on a roof, got stopped at a calypsic red light which seemed to never want to let us go, and saw two dogs attached by leash to this guy who had a burly white beard matching the color of one dog and dark brown hair atop his head matching the color of the other. How do you tackle writer’s block? As a kid, I really wanted to keep a diary.