VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award honors an outstanding debut novel published in the preceding calendar year.

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award judging process involves Community Readers, the VCU MFA program and faculty, a First Novelist Committee and the winner of the previous year's award.

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

We’re thrilled to announce the 2026 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award’s Top 20 Longlist! Below are our selections of excellent debut novels published in 2025.

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

The deadline draws closer! Submit to the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award today.

Submissions close Dec. 30th, 2025.

🔗 https://t.co/geItnTBnTj

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

We've been celebrating bold first novels since 2002. Here's an overview of how a Cabell First Novelist Award winner is chosen.

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

What a night! We were delighted to host winning author Anne de Marcken and @NewDirections editor Barbara Epler for the 2025 Cabell First Novelist Award night. We so appreciated the insights they shared on writing, publishing, art, and life.

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

TOMORROW! We'll see you at 7pm in the James Branch Cabell Library Lecture Hall (Room 303) for the Cabell First Novelist Award night!

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

New Blackbird alert! Read the latest issue of VCU's literary journal online at https://t.co/TxwLM2orwL.

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Our favorite night of the year is one week away! Join us on Nov 5th for a night of celebration with Anne de Marcken, author of It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over, and Barbara Epler, editor and president of New Directions Publishing!

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Send us your debuts! The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award is still open for submissions.

Debut novels conventionally published anytime in the 2025 calendar year are eligible.

Submissions close Dec 30th, 2025.

🔗 https://t.co/geItnTAQ3L

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Here's a small taste of what to expect when you crack open this year's Cabell First Novelist Award winner. 🐦‍⬛

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Anne de Marcken will be at Shelf Life Books in Richmond on November 5th from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM to sign copies of her book! 📖 ✍️

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Congratulations to past Cabell First Novelist Award winner Jade Chang, whose new novel, What a Time to Be Alive, is out now from @eccobooks!

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Did you know that this year's Cabell First Novelist Winner also won the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction? 🤩

Here's what the panel had to say about Anne de Marcken's It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over.

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Bloomland by John Englehardt was the 2020 winner of the Cabell First Novelist Award. It's now available in paperback — check it out from Dzanc Books:

https://t.co/TzaFo67JyR

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Join VCU Creative Writing for the season's first event in our MFA reading series, Moveable Feast, this Friday! Come hear these talented MFA students read their work! 🍂

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

There's still time to read the winning novel ahead of the Cabell First Novelist Award night! Here's the gripping first line of It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken.

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Congratulations to past Cabell First Novelist Award winner Angela Flournoy, who was recently longlisted for the National Book Award for her second novel, The Wilderness!

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

We're excited to announce that Barbara Epler, President at @NewDirections Publishing and Anne de Marcken's editor, will be joining us for this year's Cabell First Novelist Award Night!

Photo by Nina Subin.

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Last night's Levis Reading Prize event was excellent! Thank you Weijia Pan for the wonderful reading!

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Don't forget: VCU's Levis Reading Prize event is at 7 p.m. on Thursday, September 25. Winner Weijia Pan will read from his beautiful poetry collection, "Motherlands." Hope to see you there!

https://t.co/XE3BxuOhQU

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries

[VCU Cabell First Novelist Award @FirstNovelVCU]

Send us your debuts!

Debut novels traditionally published in the 2025 calendar year are eligible.

Submissions close Dec 30th, 2025.

🔗 https://t.co/geItnTAQ3L

@VCUCHS @VCUEnglish @VCULibraries