# J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award

The J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, established in 1999, is a literary award "given annually to aid in the completion of a significant work of nonfiction on a topic of American political or social concern." The prize is given by the Nieman Foundation and by the Columbia University School of Journalism and is intended to "assist in closing the gap between the time and money an author has and the time and money that finishing a book requires.
Every year, one or two award winners receive an award of at least $25,000, and a finalist may receive a $5,000 award. Shortlisted books, introduced in 2016, receive no monetary award.

## Recipients

Titles listed below are the named titles in the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards documents. Because the books are listed as in-progress, the book titles may have changed after publication. When applicable, the published book has been linked.
Award winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1999 | Kevin Coyne | The Best Years of Their Lives: One Town’s Veterans and How They Changed the World | Winner |
| 2000 | James Tobin | Work of the Wind: A Remarkable Family, an Overlooked Genius, and the Race for Flight | Winner |
| 2000 | Larry Tye | | Finalist |
| 2000 | Laura Bridgman | | Finalist |
| 2001 | Max Holland | A Need to Know: Inside the Warren Commission | Winner |
| 2001 | Elinor Langer | | Finalist |
| 2002 | Jacques Leslie | On Dams | Winner |
| 2002 | Harry Bruinius | | Finalist |
| 2002 | Richard Steven Street | | Finalist |
| 2003 | Suzannah Lessard | Mapping the New World: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Sprawl | Winner |
| 2003 | Orlando Figes | | Finalist |
| 2003 | Steven Stoll | | Finalist |
| 2004 | John Bowe | Slavery Inc. | Winner |
| 2004 | Eyal Press | | Finalist |
| 2004 | Beryl Satter | | Finalist |
| 2005 | Joan Quigley | Home Fires | Winner |
| 2005 | Amy Bach | | Finalist |
| 2005 | Steven Greenhouse | | Finalist |
| 2006 | Laura Claridge | Emily Post and the Rise of Practical Feminism | Winner |
| 2006 | Bruce Barcott | | Finalist |
| 2006 | Dudley Clendinen | | Finalist |
| 2007 | Robert Whitaker | Twelve Condemned to Die: Scipio Africanus Jones and The Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation | Winner |
| 2007 | Michael Punke | | Finalist |
| 2008 | Michelle Goldberg | The Means of Reproduction | Winner |
| 2008 | Lyanda Lynn Haupt | | Finalist |
| 2008 | Cecilia Balli | | Finalist |
| 2009 | Judy Pasternak | Yellow Dirt: The Betrayal of the Navajos | Winner |
| 2010 | Jonathan Schuppe | Ghetto Ball: A Coach, His Team, and the Struggle of an American City | Winner |
| 2010 | David Philipps | | Finalist |
| 2011 | Alex Tizon | Big Little Man: The Asian Male at the Dawn of the Asian Century | Winner |
| 2011 | Joe Mozingo | The Fiddler on Pantico Run | Finalist |
| 2011 | Florence Williams | Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History | Finalist |
| 2012 | Jonathan M. Katz | The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster | Winner |
| 2012 | Susan Southard | | Finalist |
| 2013 | Beth Macy | Factory Man | Winner |
| 2013 | Jim Robbins | | Finalist |
| 2014 | Adrienne Berard | When Yellow Was Black: The untold story of the first fight for desegregation in Southern schools | Winner |
| 2014 | Yochi J. Dreazen | | Finalist |
| 2015 | Dan Egan | Liquid Desert: Life and Death of the Great Lakes | Winner |
| 2015 | Heather Ann Thompson | | Finalist |
| 2016 | Steve Luxenberg | Separate: A Story of Race, Ambition and the Battle That Brought Legal Segregation to America | Winner |
| 2016 | Blaire Briody | | Finalist |
| 2016 | Sasha Issenberg | | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Steve Oney | | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Meredith Wadman | | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Christopher Leonard | Kochland | Winner |
| 2017 | Helen Thorpe | The Newcomers | Finalist |
| 2017 | Marie Mutsuki Mockett | | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Eyal Press | | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Richard Steven Street | | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Chris Hamby | Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of An Epic Battle for Justice | Winner |
| 2018 | Rachel Louise Snyder | No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us | Winner |
| 2018 | Arthur Holland Michel | Eyes in the Sky | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Katherine E. Standefer | Lightning Flowers | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Susan Vinocour | Nobody's Child: A Tragedy, a Trial, and the History of the Insanity Defense | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Maurice Chammah | Let the Lord Sort Them: Texas and the Death Penalty's Rise and Fall in America | Winner |
| 2019 | Steven Dudley | Mara: The Making of the MS13 | Winner |
| 2019 | Amelia Pang | Made in China: How an Engineer Ended Up in a Chinese Gulag Making Products for Kmart | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Lauren Sandler | This Is All I Got: One Woman’s Desperate Year in the New Gilded Age | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Sarah Schulman | Let the Record Show: ACT UP and the Enduring Relationship of AIDS | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Bartow J. Elmore | Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and the Future of Food | Winner |
| 2020 | Shahan Mufti | American Caliph: The True Story of the Hanafi Siege, America’s First Homegrown Islamic Terror Attack | Winner |
| 2020 | Michelle Nijhuis | Beloved Beasts: The Story of Conservation and the Fight to Protect Life on Earth | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Sarah Schulman | Let the Record Show: A Political History of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, ACT UP, NY 1987-1993 | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Lawrence Tabak | Foxconned: How the Mindless Pursuit of Good Jobs Destroys Homes, Wastes Billions and Enriches the Few | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Emily Dufton | Addiction, Inc.: How the Corporate Takeover of America’s Treatment Industry Created a Profitable Epidemic | Winner |
| 2021 | Casey Parks | Diary of a Misfit | Winner |
| 2021 | David Dennis Jr. | The Movement Made Us | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Channing Gerard Joseph | House of Swann: Where Slaves Became Queens — and Changed the World | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Elizabeth Rush | The Mother of All Things: On Climate Change, the Stories We Tell, and a Journey to the Edge of Antarctica | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Roxanna Asgarian | We Were Once a Family: The Hart Murder-Suicide and the System Failing Our Kids | Winner |
| 2022 | May Jeong | The Life: Sex, Work, and Love in America | Winner |
| 2022 | Robert Fieseler | American Scare: A Cold War in the Sunshine State | Finalist |
| 2022 | Benjamin Herold | Disillusioned: How the Suburbs and Their Schools Undermine The American Dream | Finalist |
| 2022 | Suki Kim | The Prince and the Revolutionary: Children of War | Finalist |
| 2023 | Jesselyn Cook | The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family | Winner |
| 2023 | Mike Hixenbaugh | Uncivil: One Town's Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New Battle for America's Schools | Winner |
| 2023 | Rebecca Kelliher | | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Megan Kimble | | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Jessica Pishko | | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Lorraine Boissoneault | Body Weather: Notes on Illness in the Anthropocene | Winner |
| 2024 | Alice Driver | The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company | Winner |