These Mass. authors just won the state’s top book awards. Here are the 2026 winners.

Massachusetts authors and publishers took home top honors across several categories Wednesday as The Massachusetts Center for the Book announced the winners of the 2026 Massachusetts Book Awards, including Cambridge author Jill Lepore and Boston novelist Stuart Nadler.

Lepore took home the nonfiction prize for “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution,” which examines the role amendments have played in American constitutional thought since the country’s founding. Lepore, who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in May, said in a release: “I’m thrilled to be honored and especially thrilled because Massachusetts, and its 1780 Constitution, plays such a crucial role in the history of the U.S. Constitution. Among other things, it’s where the framers got the expression, ‘We the people’!”

In the fiction category, Nadler won for “Rooms for Vanishing,” a multigenerational story following a Jewish family from Vienna. He credited Boston’s literary ecosystem with making him the writer he is.

“It’s a terrific honor to receive this award. It’s especially gratifying to win this here, at home, in this place I love,” Nadler said. “I’m a writer because of our public schools, our public libraries, our neighborhood bookstores. ‘Rooms for Vanishing’ is a novel filled with ghosts and grief, and the work of making this, of carrying it with me for the years it took to finish, transformed me. It’s humbling to be recognized for this book.”

Below, see the full list of awardees.

The 2026 Massachusetts Book Award winners

Fiction: “Rooms for Vanishing” by Stuart Nadler (Dutton)

• Honor titles: “Lake Song” by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne (Ohio State University Press); “Isola” by Allegra Goodman (Dial Press)

Nonfiction: “We the People” by Jill Lepore (Liveright / W.W. Norton)

• Honor titles: “Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless” by Maria Pinto (University of North Carolina Press); “The Art Spy by Michelle Young” (HarperOne)

Poetry: “An Optimism” by Cameron Awkward-Rich (Persea Books)

• Honor titles: “In the Good Years” by Laura Cresté (Four Way Books); “The Last Beast We Revel In” (CavanKerry Press)

Middle grade/YA: “Imposter” by Cait Levin (Charlesbridge Teen)

• Honor titles: “The Ripple Effect” by Rebecca Caprara (Charlesbridge Teen); “A World Without Summer” by Nicholas Day (Random House Studio)

Picture Book: “Flora and the Jazzers” by Astrid Sheckels (Waxwing Books)

• Honor titles: “Wonder Why” by Lisa Varchol Perron (HarperCollins); “We Go Slow” by illustrator Aaron Becker (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)

Translated literature: “Cécé” by Emmelie Prophète, translated by Aidan Rooney (Archipelago)

Notable contribution for publishing : “Slices of Life: A Comic Montage” by Qu (Bulgilhan Press)

The Massachusetts Book Awards Ceremony, marking the program’s 26th year, will be held Oct. 28 at the Massachusetts State House.

Annie Jonas is a Community writer at Boston.com. She was previously a local editor at Patch and a freelancer at the Financial Times.