Chautauqua Literary Arts

06/05/2026

Gratitude to our guest judges and congratulations to Susan Choi!

🏆 Announcement!🏆

Chautauqua Institution proudly announces Flashlight by Susan Choi as the 2026 winner of The Chautauqua Prize. Award annually since 2012, The Chautauqua Prize celebrates a book of fiction, literary/narrative nonfiction, or poetry that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and honors the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts.

Flashlight is an expansive, ambitious, multigenerational novel that is equal parts historical fiction, family saga, and bildungsroman. It is a story of secrets, shadows, and absences that reverberate across time and continents. As the novel progresses, shifting perspective from one character to the next, we learn more about a family who has not only lost a husband and father, but has been severed from their pasts in unfathomable ways.

Gratitude to our independent jury of guest judges, Oliver de la Paz, Glory Edim, Jillian Hanesworth, and Kao Kalia Yang, for your time and expertise and to the donors who make this Prize possible!

Learn more: https://www.chq.org/announcements/susan-chois-flashlight-wins-2026-chautauqua-prize/



Susan Choi
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Poet Jillian Hanesworth
Kao Kalia Yang
Oliver de la Paz

05/29/2026

Check out this interview with the 2025 Chautauqua Janus Prize winner, Stefan Bindley-Taylor!

Read the full interview here: https://www.chautauquajournal.com/post/writing-toward-the-potentials-an-interview-with-stefan-bindley-taylor

05/26/2026

Congratulations to the 2026 Chautauqua Prize Finalists!

🚨 ALERT! 🚨

Chautauqua Institution is pleased to announce 7 exceptional books as the 2026 finalists for The Chautauqua Prize, now in its 15th year:
Universality: A Novel by Natasha Brown (Random House)
Flashlight: A Novel by Susan Choi (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
O Sinners! A Novel by Nicole Cuffy (One World)
Old School Indian: A Novel by Aaron John Curtis (Zando - Hillman Grad Books)
Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal by Mohammed El-Kurd (Haymarket Books)
The River is Waiting: A Novel by Wally Lamb (Scribner)
This is Your Mother: A Memoir by Erika J. Simpson (Scribner)

Awarded annually since 2012, this award draws upon Chautauqua Institution’s considerable literary legacy to celebrate a book that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and to honor the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts. The winning book will be selected from this list of finalists and announced in early June. Read more at: https://bit.ly/4dNuu34.

All these books are available for purchase in-person and online at The Chautauqua Bookstore: https://bit.ly/4nRMyxP

Chautauqua Literary Arts

05/18/2026

Don't miss the opportunity to engage with two of the selections before the Chautauqua summer assembly season begins!

This Wednesday, May 20, join Chautauqua Literary Arts and Chautauqua Common Grounds to discuss the Spring selection, Dreamt I Found You by Jimin Han. This event is free and open to the public.

⏰️ 3:30 PM
📍The Smith Memorial Library

Next Wednesday, May 27, join us for a discussion of the CHQ County Book Read, LatinoLand by Marie Arana. All CHQ County Book Read discussions are free and open to the public. Registration is encouraged. Learn more via YWCA Jamestown.

⏰️ 5:00 PM
📍The Smith Memorial Library



Register for individual book discussions in May and June here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNNVs6NBJT4cvpZhjOLAHkFAN2oUH7tLMSi6SzZaEa0gxVOw/viewform

05/13/2026

YWCA Jamestown and Chautauqua Institution selected “LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority” by Marie Arana as the common read book.

For information about the CHQ Book Read and to register to attend the book discussion, please visit the link below:
https://www.ywcajamestown.com/chqbookread

05/12/2026

✨️ Congratulations to the 2026 Chautauqua Janus Prize winner, Hassaan Mirza! ✨️

Chautauqua Institution is delighted to announce “Name, Place, Animal, Thing" by Hassaan Mirza as the winner of the 2026 Chautauqua Janus Prize.

In another record-breaking year for submissions, Mirza’s “Name, Place, Animal, Thing” was selected by guest judge, Deborah A. Miranda among 10 finalists. Hassaan Mirza will receive the $5,000 prize, plus travel and lodging for a week’s writing residency at Chautauqua Institution this summer. He will give a public lecture and reading at a celebratory event at 4 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 12, in the parlor of the Athenaeum Hotel as part of Chautauqua Institution’s 2026 Summer Assembly.

“Winning the Janus Prize for this story is, on a fundamental level, an encouragement to continue down the path I am on, and to continue to take more risks in my writing,” said Mirza. “I am also thrilled to be able to partake in a residency at the Chautauqua Institution and to meet new readers, writers, and thinkers. Even though writing is a solitary task, the fact that it can connect me to new communities feels nothing short of a gift.”

Gratitude to our jury of readers, our guest judge Deborah A. Miranda, and the donors for your time and efforts in supporting this prize for innovative, emerging writers!

Read the full press release: https://bit.ly/4d5Ft99
Chautauqua Literary Arts

05/11/2026

There's still time to register for this CLSC Unbound event!

Join us this evening at 4:30 PM (EDT) via Zoom to hear more from Jimin Han about her newest novel, Dreamt I Found You.

Register here: https://chq1874.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Sn0shIgTSXmn_obBpe3Ybg #/registration

For more information visit clsc.chq.org

Join us next week for a conversation with Jimin Han on her most recent novel, Dreamt I Found You, via Zoom!

📅 Monday, May 11

⏰️ 4:30 PM EDT

📍Zoom Webinar

From the critically acclaimed author, Jimin Han, comes Dreamt I Found You, a contemporary retelling of Korea’s Romeo & Juliet, as the cousin of the star-crossed lovers helps them avoid a tragic fate. For fans of Hello Beautiful, Dreamt I Found You is a wondrous, tender retelling of Korea’s most classic love story, steeped in the travails of a rigid class system, the power of premonition, and shot through with Korean folklore and magic.

For more information on this free CLSC Unbound event, visit: clsc.chq.org

Register today: https://chq1874.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Sn0shIgTSXmn_obBpe3Ybg #/registration

05/04/2026

Join us next week for a conversation with Jimin Han on her most recent novel, Dreamt I Found You, via Zoom!

📅 Monday, May 11

⏰️ 4:30 PM EDT

📍Zoom Webinar

From the critically acclaimed author, Jimin Han, comes Dreamt I Found You, a contemporary retelling of Korea’s Romeo & Juliet, as the cousin of the star-crossed lovers helps them avoid a tragic fate. For fans of Hello Beautiful, Dreamt I Found You is a wondrous, tender retelling of Korea’s most classic love story, steeped in the travails of a rigid class system, the power of premonition, and shot through with Korean folklore and magic.

For more information on this free CLSC Unbound event, visit: clsc.chq.org

Register today: https://chq1874.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Sn0shIgTSXmn_obBpe3Ybg #/registration

04/29/2026

🚨 Announcement! 🚨

Chautauqua Literary Arts is pleased to present the Week Nine 2026 CLSC selection and its accompanying presentation.

🗓️ Friday, Aug. 28
⏰ 2:00 p.m.
📍Hall of Philosophy

In the short story collection, White Cat, Black Dog, Kelly Link finds seeds of inspiration in the stories of the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads. She spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers, with characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.

04/28/2026

✨️ Happy Release Day!✨️

Jimin Han's sophomore novel and the Spring 2026 selection, Dreamt I Found You, is now available in bookstores and libraries near you.

Pick up a copy from The Chautauqua Bookstore or your local library today and join us for our CLSC Unbound event with Jimin Han in May!

📅 Monday, May 11
⏰️ 4:30 PM EDT
📍Zoom

Register for this free event here: https://chq1874.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Sn0shIgTSXmn_obBpe3Ybg #/registration