Announcements: Finalists (June 2, 2026) | Winners (July 26, 2026) | Acceptance Remarks (July 26, 2026)

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Alexei Kondratiev Award

The Alexei Kondratiev Award, named in honor of Alexei Kondratiev, long-time Society member and a scholar of wide-ranging interests in mythopoeic and related studies, is given to an outstanding paper presented at Mythcon by an undergraduate or graduate student.

There was no Alexei award presented at Mythcon 54.

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All Book Award Finalists

Fantasy Awards

Adult Literature

• Holly Black, The Charlatan Duology (also known as the Book of Night series), consisting of Book of Night (Tor Books 2022) and Thief of Night (Tor Books 2025)
• Martin Cahill, Audition for the Fox (Tachyon 2025)
• Lev Grossman, The Bright Sword (Viking 2024)
• T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater (47North 2025)
• Jared Pechaček, The West Passage (Tordotcom 2024)
• Samantha Sotto Yambao, Water Moon (Del Rey 2025)
• Emily Tesh, The Incandescent (Tor 2025)

Young Adult Literature

• K. Ancrum, The Corruption of Hollis Brown (HarperCollins 2025)
• Amber McBride, The Leaving Room (Feiwel & Friends 2025)
• Margaret Owen, Little Thieves series, consisting of Little Thieves (Henry Holt and Co. 2021), Painted Devils (Henry Holt and Co. 2023), and Holy Terrors (Henry Holt and Co. 2025)
• Vanessa L. Torres, On the Wings of La Noche (Knopf 2025)

Children’s Literature

• Aubrey Hartman, The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest (Little, Brown 2025)
• Sachiko Kashiwaba, The Village Beyond the Mist translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa (Yonder 2025)
• Victor Pinñeiro, The Island of Forgotten Gods (Sourcebooks Young Readers 2025)
• David A. Robertson, The Misewa Saga (Tundra 2021-2025), consisting of The Barren Grounds, The Great Bear, The Stone Child, The Portal Keeper, The Sleeping Giant, and The World’s End

Scholarship Awards

Inklings Studies

• Anahit Behrooz, Mapping Middle-earth: Environmental and Political Narratives in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Cartographies (Bloomsbury Academic 2024)
• Michael D. C. Drout, The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation (Norton 2025)
• Verlyn Flieger, A Real Taste for Fairy-Stories (Walking Tree 2025)
• Thomas P. Hillman, Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many (Kent State UP 2023)
• Giuseppe Pezzini, Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation (Cambridge UP 2025)
• Hamish Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and the Classics (Bloomsbury Academic 2023)

Myth and Fantasy Studies

• Patrick Curry, Art and Enchantment: How Wonder Works (Routledge 2023)
• Sophus Helle, editor, Enheduanna: The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author (Yale University Press 2023)
• Adam Roberts, Fantasy: A Short History (Bloomsbury Academic 2025)
• Paul R. Rovang, The Archetype of the Dying and Rising God in World Mythology (Lexington 2023)
• Dennis Wilson Wise, editor, Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 2023)