The AML Awards are given annually by the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) to the best work "by, for, and about Mormons." They are juried awards, chosen by a panel of judges. Citations for many of the awards can be found on the AML website.
The award categories vary from year to year depending on the shape of the market and what the AML decides is worthy of honor. Beginning with the 2014 awards, the AML began creating a shortlist of finalists for most categories, which preceded the final awards.
1970s +AML Award winners, 1975-1979YearCategoryAuthorTitleRef.1975-1977Critical Writing, Utah Historical Quarterly, 44:4, Fall 1976.Poetry"The Field Behind Holly House," BYU Studies 16, 1976"" and "Letter to a Four-Year-Old Daughter"Short Fiction"" and "The Reunion," both from the collection Frost in the Orchard"Indian Hills" and "Zarahemla," both from the collection Under Cottonwoods and Other Stories1978Criticism"Literary Dimensions of Mormon Autobiography," Dialogue 11, Summer 1978Poetry (Brigham Young University)"God's Plenty""Grandmother"Short Fiction"" and "Road to Damascus""Hit the Frolicking, Rippling Brooks"Criticism"Whoever Heard of a Utah Poet?: An Overview of Poetry in the Early Church." Century II, 4 (Fall 1979)1979PoetryMoods: Of LateTo UtahShort FictionNothing Very Important and Other Stories
1980s +AML Award winners, 1980-1989YearCategoryAuthorTitleRef.1980BiographyJ. Reuben Clark: The Public YearsCriticism"New Voices, New Songs: Contemporary Poems by Mormon Women" (Dialogue, Winter 1980)NovelPoetryOnce in Israel1981Criticism (in Literature and Belief)Poetry"Gilead""Lullaby in the New Year" and "Demons"Short Fiction"Lullaby in the New Year" and "Demons""Another Angel"1982-1983Criticism""DramaGod's Fools: Plays of the Mitigated ConscienceEditorial AwardEditors of the Exponent IIMormon Humor, First PrizeFreeway to Perfection, Faith Promoting Rumors, and Sunday's FoyerMormon Humor, Second PrizeSelling the Chevrolet: A Moral ExerciseNovelSummer FirePoetry"Romaunt of the Rose: A Tapestry of Poems," BYU Studies, 23:1, 1983Poetry, Young Poet's Prize"Feet," "Patience," "On My Father's 50th Birthday," and "The Birthday Present"SermonShort FictionThe Canyons of GraceSpecial Award for Popular Mormon FictionSpecial Award for Short Story AnthologyGreening Wheat: Fifteen Mormon Short Stories1984Editing & PublishingNovelA Woman of Destiny (Later republished as Saints)Personal Essay""Special Award1985Criticism"Seven Ways of Looking at Susanna"NovelCircle of FirePersonal EssayGoodbye to PoplarhavenPoetryShort Fiction"Benediction"1986Children's literature and Brent Watts (illus.)Marty's WorldNovelPersonal and family history bookNo Regrets: The Life of Carl A. CarlquistPersonal and family history essay"When Will the Little Woman Come Out of the House?"Personal Essay"In Jeopardy Every Hour""Personal Essay Explored at AML Conference ." Sunstone Magazine. Retrieved 6 February 2016. Note: a typo in the article calls these the 1980 award winners.Poetry"Sunwatch"Religious LiteratureShort Fiction"Hozhoogoo Nanina Doo""Hozhoogoo Nanina Doo" by Michael Fillerup. Reproduced from Dialogue on author's website. Included here to correct spelling errors from other sources. Accessed April 26, 2021.1987CriticismNo Regrets: The Life of Carl A. CarlquistNovelSideways to the SunPersonal EssayLeaving HomePoetry"Self-Portrait as Brigham Young"Short FictionWoman Packing a Pistol1988Honorary Lifetime MembershipNovelCal Cameron by Day, Spider-Man by Night (Delacorte)Personal Essay"" Dialogue 21.4 (Winter 1988): 133-41PoetryTinder: answer might be. With an almost Augustinian Dry Poems (Orem, Utah: United Order Books, 1988)Short Story"," Sunstone 12.2 (March 1988): 30-38 "A House of Order," Dialogue 21.3 (Autumn 1988): 129–48 "Dust," Ascent 14.1 (1988): 1-10.Special Recognition in BiographyJuanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988)Special Recognition in Criticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988)Special Recognition in PoetrySelected Poems of Clinton F. Larson (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1988)1989Criticism"Mormon Poetry Now!: The State of the Art" (a series of four essays published in Sunstone, 1985–1989)CriticismMormonism and Music: A History (University of Illinois Press)Editing & PublishingSunstone Magazine (Editors Scott Kenney, Allen Roberts, Peggy Fletcher, and Elbert Peck)Signature BooksNovel (Norton)Personal EssayAs for Me and My House (Bookcraft)Poetry"Things in the Night Sky" in Harvest: Contemporary Mormon PoemsShort FictionBack Before the World Turned Nasty (University of Arkansas Press)
1990s +AML Award winners, 1990-1999YearCategoryAuthorTitleRef.1990Criticism"In Praise of Ourselves: Stories to Tell"NovelBonesPersonal EssayOnly When I LaughPoetry"Doing It"Short FictionMy Hard Bargain1991BiographyEditing & PublishingSignature Books and Ron Schow, Wayne Schow, Marybeth Raynes (ed.)Peculiar People: Mormons and Same-Sex OrientationHonorary Lifetime MembershipNovelXenocideLike a Fire is BurningPersonal EssayRefuge: An Unnatural History of Family and PlacePoetry"Island Spring and the Perseids", in Dialogue, Spring & Winter 1991Short Fiction"Lost and Found" from Christmas for the WorldYoung Adult LiteratureMy Name is Sus5an Smith. The 5 is Silent1992Biography and Jerry BorrowmanBefore the Blood TribunalChildren's Literature and Dileen MarshAll Kinds of AnswersHonorary Lifetime MembershipSalt Lake Tribune, 30 January 1993NovelLost BoysPersonal EssayLiberating Form: Mormon Essays on Religion and LiteraturePoetry"Imagination Comes to Breakfast"Short FictionElegies and Love Songs1993AutobiographyHow I Got Cultured: A Nevada MemoirAward for Editorial ExcellenceWashed by a Wave of Wind: Science Fiction from the CorridorChildren's LiteratureChinook! The Joke's on George and Beauty and the Beastly ChildrenDramaIn the Company of MenHonorary Lifetime MembershipNovelTwelve SistersThy Gold to Refine: The Work and the Glory, Vol. 4Personal Essay"Monte Cristo" in Wasatch Review International, 2:1, June 1993.PoetryCrazy for LivingSermonLighten Up! and Cat's CradleService to Mormon Letters and Weber State UniversityWeber Studies, Vol. 10.3, Tenth Anniversary IssueShort StoryOur Secret's OutYoung Adult LiteratureThe Dragon's Tapestry and The Prism Moon1994BiographyMy Best for the Kingdom: John Lowe Butler, A Mormon FrontiersmanCriticism"Towards a Mormon Criticism: Should We Ask 'Is This Mormon Literature?'"DramaAccommodations: a Play in Three ActsHonorary Lifetime MembershipNovelPersonal Essay""Poetry"Magi"Short Fiction"Who Tarzan, Who Jane"Young Adult Literature1995BiographyCriticismHow to Be a Mormo-American; Or, The Function of Mormon Criticism at the Present TimeDramaMarch TaleEssayDesert Quartet: An Erotic LandscapeNovelLast BuckarooPoetry"Snows"Short Fiction"Epiphany"Young Adult LiteratureThe Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman1996BiographyLeroy Robertson: Music Giant from the RockiesChildren's LiteratureYou Don't Always Get What You Hope ForCriticism"Heritage of Hostility: The Mormon Attack on Fiction in the 19th Century; Roughly One of the R's: Some Notes of a BYU Fiction Teacher (with a Pedantry of Endnotes)"DramaJoyful NoiseNovelPersonal Essay"3/4-inch Marine Ply"PoetryCollected PoemsShort FictionNo Lie Like Love: StoriesYoung Adult LiteratureAngie1997CriticismFeasting on the Word: The Literary Testimony of the Book of MormonDevotional LiteratureSanctuaryDramaGadiantonPersonal Essay"What You Walk Away From"PoetryStone SpiritsShort FictionBeautiful Places1998Devotional Literature and Kathryn H. KiddNovelFar from HomePersonal EssayEating Chocolates and Dancing in the Kitchen: Sketches of Marriage and FamilyPoetryVarious Atmospheres: Poems and DrawingsShort FictionYoung Adult Literature1999Devotional LiteratureOne More Strain of PraiseDramaMarilyn Brown Novel AwardEvery Knee Shall Bow (published in 2003 as Vernal Promises)Marilyn Brown Novel Award Honorable MentionBarry Monroe’s Missionary JournalWindowsNovelTatheaPersonal EssayExpecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday MagicShort FictionSurvival Rates
2000s