The 2027 Pulitzer Prize competition for Books is now open. The Pulitzer Prizes for Books are awarded to work in Fiction, U.S. History, Biography, Memoir or Autobiography, Poetry and General Nonfiction. A $15,000 cash award accompanies each Prize.
For the 2027 competition, eligible titles must be first published in the United States during calendar year 2026, and made available in hardcover or bound paperback for purchase by the general public. (Accordingly, titles solely released as ebooks are ineligible.) Authors are eligible to enter their work if they are U.S. citizens, permanent residents of the United States or if the United States has been their longtime primary home.
All books must be submitted electronically as PDF files. There is a $75 handling fee for each entry.
Please note that a new questionnaire prompt on the application enjoins entrants to expound on whether they used any AI tools in the production of their work. If this is not relevant, please answer with “N/A” or “not applicable.”
The recommended entry deadline for eligible books published between January 1, 2026 and July 31, 2026 is July 15, 2026. As this is a non-binding deadline intended to mitigate crowding of the final deadline, books published in the first half of the year may continue to be submitted until the final deadline of October 15, 2026.
Entrants with eligible books published between October 16 and December 31, 2026 must submit the most finalized iteration of their work (whether a manuscript copy, galley or complete PDF) by the October 15 deadline in order to be considered. Books first published in calendar year 2025 (including the fourth quarter following the 2026 competition deadline in October 2025) are no longer eligible.
An important reminder: Entrants (i.e. those whose work is submitted in the competition, whether via self-submission or through the sponsorship of their publisher) are not considered to be “Pulitzer Prize nominees” and should not identify themselves as such in subsequent publications or marketing materials; instead, this designation is reserved for the winner(s) and nominated finalists announced in each category every year. For more information, please see question #20 in our general FAQ.
Interested parties also may wish to review recent works that have received a Pulitzer or the nominated finalist distinction in the Books categories by clicking on the categories in the lower menu here.
Additional entry information, including rules and instructions, may be found on the How to Enter page of Pulitzer.org.
All entrant accounts must now be manually approved for security compliance by our office. Please allow up to 24 hours for approval during business hours, while accounts registered after 5:30 p.m. Friday will be approved beginning Monday morning for the duration of the cycle.
After creating a new account or accessing a preexisting account, the entry form for Books is available at bdmentrysite.pulitzer.org via the “Submit an Entry” button on the top scroll bar. (Attempted physical entries accompanied by the superannuated PDF entry form will not be accepted.) As the scroll bar is not optimized for Android, we recommend completing the entry form on a desktop or laptop if at all feasible.
The Drama and Music entry portals will open for the 2026 competition in August.