First Novel Prize 2026: Seven Debut Novelists on Craft and Habit

By Marcus Bennett

Seven debut novelists will each receive $1,000 as shortlisted finalists for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, announced in September, with the winner to collect $15,000 when the result is declared in December. The prize honors the year's strongest first novels "in recognition of their contribution to contemporary literature and in support of their ongoing creative career." This year's judges are R. O. Kwon, Kiese Laymon, Jordy Rosenberg and Danzy Senna.

The shortlist spans seven books and seven sharply different writing lives. Literary Hub put a set of questions to the finalists about their reading and writing routines. Their answers sketch a picture of contemporary American debut fiction that is various, practical and often funny.

Who is on the list?

• Emeline Atwood, author of A Real Animal.
• Samantha Josephs, author of Carrying.
• T Kira Madden, author of Whidbey.
• Giada Scodellaro, author of Ruins, Child.
• Avigayl Sharp, author of Offseason.
• Ankur Thakkar, author of Blow Yourself Up.
• Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford.

The list mixes press-darling debuts with writers who hold day jobs. Atwood writes by day at a software marketing job and calls writing "a vocation — something I can't not do." Thompson-Spires, already known for her story collection, arrives with a revenge novel. "I'd like everyone who's ever wished for revenge — and held back, or acted on it — to read this novel," she said.

What does a working routine look like?

Almost nothing about routine is shared. Atwood aims for six in the morning and reports failing at it, trained by a chihuahua named Crackers who wakes her to go outside. Josephs writes from noon to six, with an optional nightcap from ten to midnight. Sharp works mornings because she does not "seem to have a mind in the afternoons." Thakkar cites Chuck Klosterman on the difference between the morning and evening brain. Thompson-Spires, who writes with chronic pain, keeps hours closer to noon to six.

Scodellaro claims no routine at all. "The strangeness of my writing routine is reflected in its nonexistence," she said. Madden, once a night writer, now writes as early as possible and stops when a big meal makes her "go blurry."

Procrastination habits are equally concrete. Josephs admits to heavy TikTok use. Sharp washes dishes while watching the BBC's Father Brown series. Madden hunts Reddit "research" holes and checks for news of a Joanna Newsom album. Thakkar's answer is the shortest of all: reading novels.

How do these writers handle blocks and advice?

The finalists treat block as material rather than emergency. Atwood recommends writing what you wish had happened yesterday. Madden gives herself playful prompts — what if this character had to attend a boring dinner party? Thompson-Spires reframes the problem outright: "what we call writer's block is really just fear or analysis paralysis stemming from perfectionism."

Josephs deploys an unusual placeholder method. When stuck, she types "RUTABAGA" and moves on, then searches the word later to fill the cracks — though "this does not work if you are writing about root vegetables," she noted.

Atwood carries two pieces of advice she trusts: Ira Glass on the gap between taste and early work, and Ursula K. Le Guin's warning that "people who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within." Thakkar's maxim is blunt: "Never sleep on interiority. It's the novel's competitive advantage over every other art form."

What shaped their literary educations?

The influences run from family to formal study. Atwood's father read aloud every night into middle school. Madden credits her thesis advisor Suzanne Hoover, her Pasifika and Indigenous writing community, and her Tūtū, who taught her letters on an IBM Selectric. Scodellaro names her mother, Karen Elizabeth Ford, a dancer and writer, as "the person, the place, the practice." Sharp cites Sigmund Freud. Thakkar thanks a fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Christie.

Rereading lists cluster around Chekhov, Gwendolyn Brooks's Maud Martha (named by both Scodellaro and Sharp), Toni Morrison's Beloved and Lynda Barry. Thakkar fell in love with The Mahabharata as a graphic novel and names a character in Blow Yourself Up after Arjun.

The winner joins a lineage the Center for Fiction has built over decades, and a December announcement will settle which of these seven first books earns the $15,000 prize.