Five booksellers were selected to receive a $10,000 prize that provides the aspiring writer-booksellers with the financial support to focus on a full-length manuscript. The Susan Kamil Emerging Writers Prize was established by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and bestselling author Charles Duhigg and his wife Liz Alter, a professor of biology at California State University Monterey Bay. The Book Industry Charitable (Binc) Foundation administers the prize.

The prize is named for Kamil, who was executive vice president and publisher of Random House when she died in 2019. Her publishing career, spanning more than 40 years, began in the 1970s working in the children’s book division of Macmillan Publishers. Over those years she was known for recognizing new literary voices and introducing them to the public.

This year’s recipients:

Toni Chappell is a former journalist and the owner of Fiction: A Novel Bookshop in Wiscasset, Maine. She holds an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from England’s Bath Spa University and is the author of two historical fiction works-in-progress. Short-list honors include the Janklow & Nesbit Bath Spa Prize (2019) and the Fish Poetry Prize (2021). Toni champions human authors, is an avid reader, walker, lazy-river kayaker, and once took a spin in an F-18 with the Blue Angels. Her two daughters and a standard poodle named Peach are not-so-silent partners in the bookshop.

Erica Caldwell owned and operated a bookstore for eight years and has since worked at several bookstores throughout Western New York, including her current position as buyer at Author’s Note in Medina, NY. She holds a BS in Creative Writing with a minor in Biology. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have previously appeared in The Dire Elegies: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America and War, Literature, and the Arts. Her submitted manuscript is a work of historical eco-fiction.

Daniel Isaiah Elder is the recipient of an Emerging LGBTQ Writer Fellowship from Lambda Literary, as well as an Art/Lab Fellowship for Jewish artists. His essays and short fiction have appeared in The Rumpus, Catapult, X-Ray Literary, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and many more literary journals and magazines. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his partner and their blended family of three children. He’s proud to be a bookseller at Annie Bloom’s Books, a small independent bookstore soon celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Nicole Yackley is a poet, bookseller, and artist from GA. Her work has been published in Belletrist Magazine and Sixfold Magazine, among others. A series of her poems were set to music by Mikeila McQueston and performed as a chamber piece for the 2019 Nief-Norf festival. The piece won the Constantinides New Music Ensemble Call for Scores prize, was performed at Carnegie Hall in 2022, and was later a finalist for The American Prize in Composition—vocal chamber music (college/university division), 2023. She has a BA in English from UGA and an MFA in Poetry from UTK where she studied under Joy Harjo. Her poetry can be found at nicoleyackley.com.

Amanda R. Toronto is the children’s buyer at WORD Bookstores in Brooklyn, NY, and Jersey City, NJ. She is a former buyer and manager at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstores in New York City. Amanda serves on the board of NAIBA and holds a PhD in English and American Literature from New York University. She lives in New York City with her husband and children. Her manuscript is a work of literary fiction.

The finalists were:

• Adrianne Berlage, Barnes & Noble, Washington
• Jane Estes, Lark and Owl Booksellers, Texas
• Pamela Huber, Fireside Books, Arkansas
• Richard Hunt, Roebling Books & Coffee, Kentucky
• Gina Marks, Book + Bottle, Florida
• Derek McCormack, The Provincetown Bookshop, Massachusetts
• Nicole NfonoyimHara, Griot Arts, Minnesota
• Timothy Otte, Wild Rumpus Books, Minnesota
• Shebati, Sengupta, Wellesley Books, Massachusetts
• Cristina Siqueira, Lions Tooth LLC, Wisconsin
• Sierra Smith, Too Fond of Books, Oklahoma
• Amy Stephenson, The Booksmith, New York
• Joan Trygg, Red Balloon Bookshop, Minnesota
• Sarah Wager, Oregon Books and Games, Oregon