The Windham-Campbell Prizes Festival will return this fall from Tuesday, September 15 to Friday September 18, 2026, on Yale University’s campus. Free and open to all, the festival brings the very best writers from all over the world to New Haven to celebrate their literary achievements.
The recipients of this year’s Windham-Campbell Prizes, a prize for extraordinary writers at any stage of their literary career across fiction, nonfiction, drama and poetry in the English language, will be giving a program of talks, performances, and screenings at the festival, sharing insights into their expertise, interests, and creativity.
The festival officially opens with Tuesday evening’s Food Truck Welcome featuring delicious food, music from DJ Edgewood, a great crowd, and the chance to pick up a festival program.
This year’s program highlights include acclaimed playwrights Christina Anderson and S. Shakthidharan performing staged readings of their drama works with students from David Geffen School of Drama, multitalented writer of nonfiction Kei Miller exploring the radical space of Carnival, and Christina Anderson sharing her experiences staging an adaption of famed Harlem Renaissance figure Zola Neale Hurston’s writing.
The full list of recipients at the festival are:
- Gwendoline Riley (United Kingdom) – fiction
- Adam Ehrlich Sachs (United States) – fiction
- Lucy Sante (United States/Belgium) – nonfiction
- Kei Miller (Jamaica) – nonfiction
- Christina Anderson (United States) – drama
- S. Shakthidharan (Australia/Sri Lanka) – drama
- Joyelle McSweeney (United States) – poetry
- Karen Solie (Canada) – poetry
Previous recipients of the prize include Tongo Eisen-Martin (Poetry, 2025), Hanif Abdurraqib (Nonfiction, 2024), Christina Sharpe (Nonfiction, 2024), m. nourbeSe philip (Poetry, 2024), Percival Everett (Fiction, 2023), Dominique Morisseau (Drama, 2023), Margo Jefferson (Nonfiction, 2022), Winsome Pinnock (Drama, 2022), Vivian Gornick (Nonfiction, 2021), Dionne Brand (Fiction, 2021), Michael R. Jackson (Drama, 2021), Aleshea Harris (Drama, 2020), Kwame Dawes (Poetry, 2019), Ike Holter (Drama, 2017) and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Drama, 2016).
Michael Kelleher, Director of the Windham-Campbell Prizes said: “We are very excited to be welcoming and hosting such talented writers, for what is set to be a fascinating and inspiring festival celebrating writing at its best.”
The full program and further details of events can be found on windhamcampbell.org.
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