Today, the DAG Foundation announced the winners of its second annual DAG Awards, which award $20,000 to a visual artist, a writer and a musician “whose work expands the possibilities for American art.”
Specifically, the DAG Prize for Literature is intended to “support writing that offers significant innovation – for example, at the level of form, content or style – and is intended to support the second book-length prose project of a writer whose work has not yet received major literary recognition.”
Its 2026 winner is tegan nia swansonWhose second novel is in progress, We do not dream of salt plagues “A climactic Gothic love letter to the queer and trans community.” In a press release, the DAG judges praised Swanson’s work for the “distinctiveness and audacity of her vision” and her “purposeful” politics. Swanson was selected from a shortlist of seven applicants announced earlier this year, out of 220 applicants.
“In our second year of the DAG Awards, it was very important for us to continue to honor new work that speaks to a new generation of artists and a new world we live in, one that threatens the existence of arts funding and innovation,” Elissa Graham, who founded the award with her husband Douglas Graham, said in a statement. “The winners help us see a brighter future in the arts – one in which artists can continue to explore new territories and push boundaries, ultimately paving the way for new dialogue and more collective experiences.”
the other two winners are Eric Alejandro Hernandez (DAG Award for Visual Arts) and luz elena mendoza (DAG Award for Music). Each winner will be awarded a prize of $20,000.
