STAR Award for Published Women's Fiction

Past Winners 

2024

GENERAL CATEGORY

Winner: Five Winters by Kitty Johnson

Finalists:

Girl Braiding Her Hair by Marta Molnar

Once Upon a Lie by Rebecca Taylor

OUTSTANDING DEBUT

Winner: La Vie, According to Rose by Lauren Parvizi

Finalists:

Follow the Sun by Liz Locke

The Art of Becoming Another Person Entirely by Brenda Arnold

2023

GENERAL CATEGORY

Winner: The Memory Keeper of Kyiv by Erin Litteken

Finalists:

Red Thread of Fate by Lyn Liao Butler

These Numbered Days by Anna Collins

OUTSTANDING DEBUT

Winner: Truth and Other Lies by Maggie Smith

Finalists:

Still True by Maggie Ginsberg

Visible Signs by Grace Marcus

2022

GENERAL CATEGORY

Winner: The Wilderness Between Us by Penny Haw

Finalists:

He Gets That From Me by Jacqueline Friedland

Behind the Lens by Jeannée Sacken

OUTSTANDING DEBUT

Winner: The Audacity of Sara Grayson: A Novel by Joani Elliott

Finalists:

Waiting for the Night Song by Julie Carrick Dalton

A Day Like This: A Novel by Kelley McNeil

2021

GENERAL CATEGORY

Winner: Her Perfect Life, by Rebecca Taylor

Finalists:
Jamie Beck, Truth of the Matter
Kim Taylor Blakemore, The Companion

OUTSTANDING DEBUT

Winner: Wildland, by Rebecca Hodge

Finalists:
K.D. Allbaugh, Face Down in Rising Sun
Ehsaneh Sadr, A Door Between Us

2020

GENERAL CATEGORY

Winner: We Hope for Better Things, by Erin Bartels

Finalists:

Kelly Harms, The Overdue Life of Amy Byler
Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

OUTSTANDING DEBUT

Winner: We Hope for Better Things, by Erin Bartels

Finalists:
Lorelei R. Brush, Uncovering
Christie Grotheim, The Year Marjorie Moore Learned to Live