I Won a Writing Award. Does It Matter?

Today’s post is by author Eleanor Vincent.

My book Disconnected was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award, a prestigious prize for a small press book. In mid-May it won an honorable mention in the memoir category, recognition that came with bragging rights, but no prize money. Still, the award telegraphed something important: My work matters to readers. More than 2,500 books were entered in the Hoffer competition in 25 categories, so being among the fraction of winners is remarkable.

Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage (Vine Leaves Press, 2024) is an eyewitness account of a marriage where one person exhibits autistic characteristics and the other doesn’t. This kind of relationship is called “neurodiverse” because the partners’ brains function differently. I wanted to give voice to the special challenges of neurodiverse relationships and offer readers resources it took me too long to discover. I vowed to steer readers to support systems that work and away from ones that don’t. So, if winning an award attracts more people to my book, I consider that a win.

However, there’s been debate about whether writing awards are meaningful, or just a way to stroke writers’ egos. No less than the novelist and essayist Roger Rosenblatt questioned their worth in a New York Times op-ed shortly after he won a Guggenheim Fellowship: “We should take care to assign prizes their proper weight, to neither mistake them for meaning too much nor too little. A prize is a wonderful thing, but it is the work, and the artist’s commitment to it, that matters.”

However, Amber Sparks, writing in Slate, voiced concern about Rosenblatt’s essay: “The Times’ op-ed didn’t make me mad; it made me want to read a totally different story about prizes, one that recognizes their power and utility and offers a freewheeling discussion of creative ideas on funding writers and making writing a truly viable career for everyone.” Writers she interviewed for her article had used prize money to fix a roof or enroll their child in daycare.

While awards like the Pulitzer, the Nobel, the Booker, or the Guggenheim come with big money attached, most prizes offer little more than peer recognition and a short-lived bump in publicity. And as self-published books command more market share, awards have multiplied like rabbits, to the point that many question their value, arguing that they offer more upside to the industry than to the writer. When I encounter entry fees above $75, I wonder if the naysayers have a point.

In the hours I write, I burn brain cells faster than Secretariat galloping to the finish line. It’s exhilarating and exhausting. But in more than five decades as a writer, I’ve earned considerably less than a thoroughbred racehorse. In fact, writers’ incomes from books do not compensate them for countless hours of effort. But I love writing enough to keep at it even if I do other things to pay the bills. I’m not alone.

I hang around with writers who are good literary citizens, critique each other’s work, attend each other’s events, and boost each other’s work on social media. We may write in Zoom meetups, at cafes, or in coworking spaces. Even if we write alone, the best work engages our readers in a dialogue. Strong writing enlarges our perspectives, makes us feel less alone, and opens a portal to a wider world. In our digital age, it provides first aid for the soul. Without the support of other writers, and my readers, I’d find it impossible to publish, let alone win awards.

But recognition of individual writers creates an updraft for anyone who sits down day after day to create stories that move readers.

Amber Sparks concludes her article, “It’s clear to me what prizes are for: to help writers write, by providing the peace of mind, the encouragement, the opportunity, the security, the publication that makes the next break, the next book, a reality.”

Winning the Hoffer Award makes me feel seen and validated. Even if a prize only helps me roll the rock of my consciousness up the hill one more day, isn’t that worth a lot? Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t refuse if someone made an offer for my next book or invited me to a three-martini lunch. For now, I’m happy the Hoffer judges decided to honor my work.

Eleanor Vincent

Eleanor Vincent’s work has been recognized by the Feminist Writers Guild and published in numerous journals and anthologies. Her memoir Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage (Vine Leaves Press, 2024) is a 2025 Eric Hoffer Award finalist. Her previous memoir, Swimming with Maya: A Mother’s Story (Dream of Things, 2013) was a finalist for the Independent Publisher of the Year Award. Her essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, This I Believe, Chicago Story Press, 580 Split, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes and the San Francisco Chronicle. She is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto and the Author’s Guild.