MFA Narrative Nonfiction mentor receives 2025 American Mosaic Journalism Prize

Latria Graham, a mentor in the Masters of Fine Arts Narrative Nonfiction program at Grady College, is one of two recipients of the prestigious American Mosaic Journalism Prize. Graham will receive $100,000 from the Heising-Simons Foundation, the largest amount given for a journalism prize in the United States.

Zaydee Sanchez was also named a recipient of an American Mosaic Journalism Prize. The prize is awarded for excellence in long-form, narrative or deep reporting about underrepresented groups in the United States. The award recognizes journalism’s ability to foster greater understanding and recognizes the important work of freelance journalists. 

A panel of 10 judges, including journalists from the Associated Press, NBC News, NPR, Columbia Journalism Review and The 19th News, among others, selected this year’s awardees.

Graham is an accomplished writer and storyteller dedicated to covering under-resourced communities in the American South. Graham’s stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker and Garden & Gun magazine, among other outlets. She writes Garden & Gun’s “This Land” column documenting aspects of the natural world in the South. Her April/May 2024 piece for Garden & Gun, “Masters of the green: the Black caddies of Augusta National,” highlights the remarkable legacy of Augusta National Golf Club’s all-Black caddie corps, whose members guided golf legends to victory, while their own excellence was overlooked for generations.

Graham’s forthcoming book, “Uneven Ground: A Memoir of a Family, a Land, and a Culture in Peril,” chronicles her attempt to preserve her family’s century-old farm and sense of rootedness. It will soon be published by Mariner, a division of HarperCollins.

Editor: Sarah Freeman, freemans@uga.edu