# James Jones Literary Society

The James Jones Literary Society is an association that honors American author James Jones by sponsoring a number of literature awards.

## History

The Society was founded in 1991 at Lincoln Trail College, Robinson, Illinois. As of 2008, it had nearly 300 members from 34 states and 5 countries. The Society sponsors a national symposium every year, when the First Novel Fellowship is awarded; these are held in different locations, but return every third year to Robinson, Jones's home town.

## First Novel Fellowship

The Society's best known award is the Annual James Jones First Novel Fellowship, co-sponsored by Wilkes University. It was established in 1992, and as of 2025 is a $12,000 prize, and two $1,000 runner up awards, awarded to American authors of first novels in progress that honor "the spirit of unblinking honesty, determination, and insight into modern culture" that Jones's works exemplified. 667 entries were received for the 2011 contest.
Laine Cunningham, winner of the 2003 award for her novel Message Stick, credits the award for US and international agents beginning to call her. She has since sponsored her own writing award.

### Awards

| Year | Author | Work | Published | Notes |
| 1993 | Nancy Flynn | Eden Undone | | $2,000, 143 entries. |
| 1994 | Mary Kay Zuravleff | The Frequency of Souls | Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1996, ISBN 978-0-374-15851-4 | 403 entries. |
| 1995 | Rick Bass | Where the Sea Used To Be | Houghton Mifflin, 1998, ISBN 978-0-395-77015-3 | $2,500, also awarded to Tanuja Desai Hidier. |
| 1995 | Tanuja Desai Hidier | Tale of a Two-Hearted Tiger | | $2,500, also awarded to Rick Bass. |
| 1996 | Greg Hrbek | The Hindenburg Crashes Nightly | William Morrow, 1999, ISBN 978-0-380-97741-3 | $2,500. |
| 1997 | Leslie Schwartz | Jumping the Green | Simon & Schuster, 1999, ISBN 978-0-684-85589-9 | |
| 1998 | Judith Barnes | A Year in the Woods | | $2,500. 470 entries. |
| 1999 | Louise Wareham Leonard | Since You Ask | Akashic Books, 2004, ISBN 978-1-888451-63-4 | $3,000. |
| 2000 | Steven Phillip Policoff | Beautiful Somewhere Else | Carroll & Graf, 2004, ISBN 978-0-7867-1321-9 | $5,000. 566 entries. |
| 2001 | Ray Cristina | Tracking Ginger | CreateSpace, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4499-8701-5 | $5,000. |
| 2002 | Linda Busby Parker | Seven Laurels | Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-9724304-7-0 | |
| 2003 | Laine Cunningham | Message Stick | Sun Dogs Creations, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9822399-0-2 | $6,000. |
| 2004 | John Smelcer | The Trap | | 593 entries. Award rescinded in 2015. |
| 2005 | Anne Campisi | The Lime Tree | | $10,000. |
| 2006 | Herta Feely | The Trials of Serra Blue | | |
| 2007 | Robin Oliveira | My Name is Mary Sutter | Viking Press, 2010, ISBN 0-670-02167-9 | Working title The Last Beautiful Day. |
| 2008 | Margarite Landry | Blue Moon | | $10,000. 520 entries. |
| 2009 | Tena Russ | After Paradise | | $10,000, 674 entries. |
| 2010 | Gina Ventre | Moon's Extra Mile | | $10,000, 520 entries. |
| 2011 | Robert Shuster | To Zenzi | New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2021, ISBN 9781936970698 | $10,000, 667 entries. |
| 2012 | Lise Brody | For One Thing She Did | | $10,000, 585 entries. |
| 2013 | Margot Singer | The Art of Fugue | As Underground Fugue, Melville House Publishing, 2017, ISBN 9781612196282 | $10,000, 666 entries. |
| 2014 | Cam Terwilliger | Yet Wilderness Grew in My Heart | | $10,000. |
| 2015 | Josie Sigler | The Flying Sampietrini | | $10,000. |
| 2015 | Alison Murphy | Balagan | | $10,000. |
| 2017 | Erin Kate Ryan | Quantum Girl Theory | Random House, 2022, ISBN 978-0-593-13343-9 | $10,000. |
| 2018 | Alicia Upano | Big Music | | $10,000. |
| 2019 | Marco Kaye | Levon | | $10,000. |
| 2020 | Morgan M.X. Schulz | Good Morning, Dr. Du Bois | | $10,000. |
| 2021 | Rose Whitmore | Feats of Strength in the Time of Hoxha | | $10,000, more than 700 entries. |

## Other awards

Since 2006, the Society has co-sponsored the annual Illinois Emerging Writers Competition, created in 2005 by Secretary of State of Illinois and State Librarian Jesse White. Originally this consisted solely of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, but since the co-sponsorship of the Society, it has also included the James Jones Short Story Award. Each category carries prizes of $500, $300, and $100 for unpublished works. Both are named after Illinois writers.
Since 2007, the Society has been working to establish the James Jones Chair in World War II Studies at Eastern Illinois University.
The Society sponsors an annual Valentine Essay Contest, based on Jones's short story, "The Valentine", for high school seniors from Crawford County, Illinois and Clark County, Illinois. The $75 and $50 prizes are awarded on Valentine's Day.