New America Celebrates 2026 Pulitzer Prizes

WASHINGTON, DC (May 5, 2026) — New America announced today that two Fellows have been recognized in the 2026 Pulitzer Prizes for work created during their fellowship. 

Brian Goldstone has won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for his book There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, an urgent narrative of five Atlanta families trying to stay housed in a city grappling with inequality—which he worked on during his 2021 New America Fellowship.

“I’m honored beyond words to receive the Pulitzer Prize,” said Goldstone of his win. “There Is No Place for Us grew in significant ways during my time as a Fellow at New America, where I was given the rare gift of time, support, and, above all, an engaged intellectual community—including fellow journalists whose own work was a vital source of inspiration. The fellowship made it possible to pursue the kind of long-term, immersive reporting this book required.”

Goldstone, an independent journalist, dives deep into the stories of the working, often hidden, homeless, who struggle with the gap between their wages and rent. The Prize recognized There Is No Place for Us as “a feat of reportage, analysis and storytelling focusing on the issues that have created a national crisis of family homelessness among the so-called working poor”—raising important questions about the American ideal of hard work as the route to success. 

Kevin Sack, a 2019 New America (Emerson Collective) Fellow, was also named a finalist in the 2026 General Nonfiction category for his book Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church—a project he worked to complete as a New America Fellow.

The Pulitzer Board celebrated Mother Emanuel for offering the “fascinating history” of one of the nation’s most important African American churches, where a white supremacist committed a mass shooting in 2015, and for exploring the church’s story of courage and grace in the fight for racial justice. 

“It is immensely gratifying, obviously, to have Mother Emanuel recognized in this way, and all the more so to be part of such a remarkable day for New America, with another book win by fellow Fellow Brian Goldstone,” said Sack of his recognition. “I take the recognition as a tribute to the legacies of the victims and survivors at Mother Emanuel, not only in June 2015 but in the two centuries prior, and to the essential role played by the African American church in our ongoing freedom struggle. I hope it might bring attention not only to this book but to others like it that can serve as antidotes to the accelerating assault we are seeing on our full, actual and shared American history.” 

Goldstone’s win marks the fifth Pulitzer Prize–winning project supported by the New America Fellows Program, and Sacks is the fifth such finalist. Past New America Fellows Pulitzer Prize winners include: 

“The Civilian Casualty Files,” an article in The New York Times by Azmat Khan (awarded in 2022)

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City, a nonfiction book by Andrea Elliott (awarded in 2022)

Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, a nonfiction book by Marcia Chatelain (awarded in 2021)

Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, a nonfiction book by Eliza Griswold (awarded in 2019)

Led by Awista Ayub with Peter Bergen as Vice President, the New America Fellows Program has been an intellectual home to more than 300 New America Fellows, resulting in the publication of more than 175 books, 19 feature-length documentary films, two podcast series, and several award-winning longform reporting projects. The fellowship supports nonfiction storytellers whose work shapes public conversation on the defining issues of our time. 

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About New America:

Our mission is to generate big ideas and bold solutions for a new America. We envision an America that represents and serves the public, where institutions work for all Americans, where workers, families, and communities can thrive, and where people are secure from existential threats. Learn more at newamerica.org.