09/16/2025
PEN Oakland announces the Winners of the 36th Annual Josephine Miles Awards for Excellence
Oakland, CA—Called by The New York Times, “The Blue Collar PEN,” PEN Oakland announces the Winners of the 36th Annual PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Awards. The 2025 PEN Oakland Award winners will be formally recognized on Saturday, December 6th, from 2:00-5:00 P.M. PST. The event will be held at the Black Repertory Group Theater: 3201 Adeline Street, Berkeley, CA, 94703. A reception will follow.
PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Awards, named for the late poet and Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community. In addition there is an Adelle Foley Award, a Reginald Martin Award for Excellence in Criticism, a Gary Webb Anti-Censorship Award and a Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award.
The full list:
The 2025 PEN Oakland Award Recipients Are:
Josephine Miles Awards:
The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the making of a Culture War by James Shapiro. (Penguin Press, an imprint of Random House LLC, 2024).
The Plains of Po lyrics by George Wallace and music by Ana Spasic and Franceso Paolo Paladino. (Donemus Records, 2024).
Return to Eden by Paco Roca. (Fantagraphics 2024).
Small Rain by Garth Greenwell. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024).
In This Ravishing World by Nina Schuyler. (Regal House Publishing, 2024).
Colored Television: A Novel by Danzy Senna. (Riverhead Books, 2024).
Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution and Made Us Who We Are by Rebecca Boyle. (Random House, 2024).
Oakland's Chinatown by William Wong. (Arcadia Publishing Library Editions, 2024).
Another Word for Love by Carvell Wallace (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024).
The Unicorn Woman: A Novel by Gayl Jones. (Beacon Press Books, 2024).
The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice — by Tricia Romano. (PublicAffairs, 2024).
Adelle Foley Award:
Miharu Ice Cream
Mona Vaughn Scott
Reginald Martin Award for Excellence in Criticism:
Errand Into the Maze: the life and works of Martha Graham by Deborah Jowett (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2024.
Helen Vendler
Gary Webb Anti-Censorship Award:
Dr. Rupa Marya
Joy Reid
Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award:
Brenda Hillman
Ethelbert Miller
