Entries Open for Tenth and Final Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize

Honey & Wax Booksellers is now welcoming entries for its 10th annual book collecting prize for women and announced that this will be its last year of operation.

A cash award of $1,000 will be made for an outstanding book collection conceived and built by a women book collector in the United States, aged 30 or younger. Honey & Wax emphasises that its definition of ‘women’ is fully inclusive of non-binary, trans and gender-non-conforming collectors.

The winning collection must have been started by the contestant, and all items in the collection must be owned by her. A collection may include books, manuscripts, and ephemera, and it may be organized by theme, author, illustrator, publisher, printing technique, binding style, or another clearly articulated principle. 

"The winning collection will be more than a reading list of favorite texts," say the organisers, "it will be a unique group of printed or manuscript objects, creatively chosen to shine light on one another. Collections will not be judged on their size or their market value, but on their originality and their success in illuminating their chosen subjects."

The Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize was founded in 2017 by Heather O’Donnell of Honey & Wax Booksellers and Rebecca Romney of Type Punch Matrix.  Previous winners include Alexandra E. LaGrand in 2025 for Archiving the Shakespearean Breeches Actress, and Elena Wicker in 2024 for Military Mania: A Collection of U.S. Military Dictionaries from 1776 to Today.

Deadline for submissions this year is July 1. The winner will be announced in September.

The 2026 prize sponsors are Biblio, Bibliopolis, Christie's, and Ellen A. Michelson.