Dana Thomann, University of Iowa associate professor of instruction in Rhetoric, has been named the 2026 Hudson Prize winner for her story collection, Erratics.

The annual literary award is presented by independent publisher Black Lawrence Press, to new, emerging, or established writers for an unpublished collection of prose or poetry. Erratics will publish in May 2028.

Inspired by Thomann’s experience growing up on a family farm in Riverside, Iowa, Erratics follows two rural families through the 1980s farm debt crisis and its aftermath in the fictional Buccan County, Iowa.