LDSPMA

Empowering Latter-day Saints to spread light and truth by connecting them at the intersection of faith, creativity, and professional skill

Praiseworthy Awards

Nominations for the 2025 Praiseworthy Awards will be open through March 1, 2025.

Submit a Praiseworthy Award Nomination

2025 Praiseworthy Awards are for works produced, published, or released in 2024. Please review the eligibility requirements below thoroughly before nominating a work.

A moment from the 2016 Praiseworthy Awards ceremony (Jay Drowns/Photography)
See The 2024 Praiseworthy Award Winners

The LDSPMA Praiseworthy Awards program recognizes excellence in published works, media, and the arts produced by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Awards are presented in multiple categories across these three fields to honor works that are “of good report or praiseworthy” (Articles of Faith 1:13) and that share the light of Christ.

We understand that it takes a number of devoted professionals to create a high-quality product. So, unique to LDSPMA, awards will be granted not only to the principal creator but to the entire team involved in the project (e.g., author, artist, editor, designer, composer, producer, actor, etc.).

Categories

Publishing

Religious or Secular:

  • Historical Fiction
  • Suspense/Mystery
  • Science Fiction/Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Short Story/Anthology/Novella
  • History/Biography
  • Lifestyle (e.g., cookbooks, journals, work books, etc.)
  • Memoir
  • Religious Topic/Scripture Study
  • Resource/Self-Help
  • Poetry
  • Picture Book
  • Graphic Novel/Web Comic
  • Digital Multimedia (e.g., blog posts, articles, essays, etc.)

Media

Religious or Secular:

  • Podcast (1 episode)
  • Audiobook
  • Short Form Film
  • Long Form Film
  • Media Series (1 episode)
  • Music Video: Cover/Arrangement
  • Music Video: Children’s Original
  • Music Video: Adult/Youth Original
  • Recorded Performance (choral, theater, dance, etc.)

Arts

Religious or Secular:

  • Original Pop/Rock/Electronic Music
  • Original Folk/Indie/Jazz Music
  • Original Classical/Instrumental Music
  • Original Adult/Youth Music
  • Original Children’s Music
  • Music Cover/Arrangement
  • Original Musical Theater
  • Original Non-musical Performing Arts
  • Visual Art (2D)
  • Visual Art (3D)

*Depending on the number and quality of submissions, we may not designate an award in each of these categories. Any categories that receive fewer than four unique nominations will not be judged or may be merged into another category.

Eligibility Requirements

The following requirements must be met for a work to be eligible for a Praiseworthy Award nomination (in ):

  • The work must have been published, released, or premiered in its current form between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024. (Please note the year.)
  • At least one collaborator must be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
  • Nominated works must be free of content that is profane, vulgar, excessively violent, or sexually explicit, or that glorifies practices contrary to the standards taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Works that violate these principles will be disqualified.
  • Nominations must be received between January 13, 2025 at 12:00 a.m. and March 1, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. (MT). Late submissions will not be considered.

Nomination Guidelines

  • Any organization or individual, whether a collaborator of the work or not, may nominate works. (If you are not one of the original collaborators of the work, you will be expected to provide us with contact information for the principal representative of the team who produced the work. If the representative is unable to provide our judges with appropriate materials, those works may be disqualified.)
  • Multiple works by the same creator can be nominated for the Praiseworthy Awards in the same year.
  • “Principal creators” will be allowed to win up to one award each per year, per “industry” (Publishing, Media, or the Arts).
  • If you are one of the original collaborators, you will be expected to provide digital copies of the work for our judges.
    • For publishing categories:
      • For works of 100 pages or more: Please provide a PDF copy and an EPUB edition of the publication.
      • For works with less than 100 pages: All entries must include a PDF copy (if your PDF is over 512 MB, you may submit a sharable link instead).
    • For media categories, all entries must include a shareable file or a viewable link for our judges to access, and a high-quality cover or promotional image.
    • For music categories, please provide a viewable PDF copy of the sheet music and a shareable audio recording to distribute to our judges (the recording need not be a professional recording if submitting to the arts category).
    • For performing arts categories, please provide a viewable PDF copy of the sheet music, score, and/or script, as well as an optional media recording (audio or video).
    • For 2D and 3D visual art categories, please provide viewable and shareable images of the art for our judges to review.
    • All categories are expected to provide a high-quality cover or promotional image that may be used in marketing materials announcing the winners if you win.
    • All categories are allowed to send in additional pictures of physical editions of publications or products. However, we ask that representatives send no more than five (5) images total in their entries.
    • For all online links to nominated works, please do not provide a link that sends our judges to purchase the product, even if there’s a possibility for a free trial (e.g., sending an audiobook as a link to the book on Audible, which requires a subscription or purchase). Upload the file directly (or provide a “Anyone can access” unlisted link in the case of some large files, like video recordings).

Judging and Prizes

Each category will be rated by a team of three judges who are professionals in their assigned category. The rating criteria vary by form and genre, but all entries will be rated by the quality of their craft and their adherence to the principles in the 13th Article of Faith. Works are also judged holistically (e.g., a book will be judged according to its cover design and quality of editing as well as its story craft, or a music video will be judged by its videography as well as musicality).

Judges will designate three finalists, who will receive Praiseworthy Awards in first, second, and third place. If a category’s entries do not meet the standards of a praiseworthy work, our judges also reserve the right to designate no award.

In the months preceding our conference, the three finalists for each category will be posted on our website and the collaborators notified. The works of all three finalists will be displayed on our social media platforms as well as at the LDSPMA Conference.

The first-place, second-place, and third-place winners of each category will then be announced and honored at our annual LDSPMA Awards Banquet. Winners will also be announced on our website and social media platforms.

Each will receive a certificate and digital badge. All winners may include the badge on their websites, publications, social media pages, and elsewhere.

FAQs

Please review the following questions carefully before reaching out to us with further questions.

No, collaborators do not have to be members of LDSPMA. However, we encourage you to subscribe (free) or join our paid membership and get involved today!

No! You can nominate any work that you know of that has been released during the previous year if you believe it to be praiseworthy. Feel free to look through our categories and consider any works from the previous year that deserve recognition.

We do understand that it is at times difficult to choose a specific episode or other individual work among many that may have been released, so also feel free to contact your favorite creators and encourage them to nominate the works they consider to be most praiseworthy.

Nominations do not need to be religious unless a category is specifically labeled as such. In fact, we welcome submissions from multiple genres that explore a variety of themes and content, including material that reflects the struggles of real life. If you have any questions about specific content in your submission, please feel free to contact us at awards@ldspma.org.

Individuals and organizations may nominate up to two (2) works per subcategory (e.g. two for YA Historical Fiction, two for Middle Grade Historical Fiction, two for 2D Visual Art Painting, two for 2D Visual Art Photography, etc.) for each award type.

No. Please consider carefully the differing eligibility requirements and purposes between the two programs to determine whether your work is better suited for the Praiseworthy Awards or the Spark Awards.

The Praiseworthy Awards are intended to recognize professional, excellent works that have been released during the previous year. This award designates first, second, and third place winners. Individuals can win Praiseworthy Awards multiple years.

The Spark Awards, however, are designed to help aspiring and up-and-coming creators who have not yet broken into a professional career ("emerging creators"). While the awards are judged based on specific work produced or revised by the creator in the previous year, the award is to the creator as person, not to a specific work. There is only one winner per category. Individuals generally only win one Spark Award in their lifetime.

For more details, please see the complete qualifications for the Praiseworthy and Spark Awards programs.

You can see past award winners for the Lifetime Achievement Awards here.

You can see past award winners for the Praiseworthy Awards and Spark Awards by hovering over the award type in the main menu and then selecting a year:

Finalists for Praiseworthy Awards will be notified by the recognition committee and announced on our website and on social media.

Unfortunately, we will only accept digitally provided nominations. We hope that this will reduce cost and effort on behalf of not only the nominators but also our committee and judges. If you have specific questions or concerns, please contact us at awards@ldspma.org.

No! Nominating is completely free thanks to the generous time volunteered by our judges.

Yes! As long as your work meets the eligibility requirements, you are welcome to nominate your work. Keep in mind, however, that this will most likely exclude you from participating as a judge the same year unless you are able to judge other categories/industries.

You can contact us at judging@ldspma.org with your qualifications, experience, and categories of interest or fill out this form. To be eligible for judging, you must be a professional in the category you judge and must not have any conflicts of interest (such as working for an organization that nominated works in the category you wish to judge).

Our policy may change from year to year, but typically, as long as a certain number of hours are given to the judging process, our judges do get a discount for both the conference and the awards banquet. Judges will be contacted with coupon codes to use when they register or will be able to contact conference@ldspma.org for a refund if they have already paid full price.

Lifetime Achievement Award nominations can be made at any time here. (Note that Lifetime Achievement Award nominations are retained in perpetuity and may not be awarded the same year the nomination was made).

Lifetime Achievement Award winners are decided by the LDSPMA Board of Directors each year, drawing from the ongoing list of nominations.

You can donate to LDSPMA today and designate your donation to specifically be used for Spark Award scholarship funds.

Also, when you purchase tickets to the LDSPMA Awards Gala, some of the funds go towards the Spark Award scholarships (if applicable that year).

All donations and income to LDSPMA go directly towards supporting its mission, including things like Spark Award Scholarship funding! We appreciate your generosity and support for creators in publishing, media, and the arts!

Those actively serving in the following LDSPMA roles are not eligible to win LDSPMA awards:

  • LDSPMA President
  • LDSPMA Vice-President(s)
  • LDSPMA paid staff
  • LDSPMA Director of Recognition
  • Certain LDSPMA Recognition Committee members (as determined by the Director of Recognition)
  • Actively serving awards judges in the same categories or industries (as determined by the Director of Recognition)

Additionally, LDSPMA board members who are the principal creator of a work are discouraged from nominating their own works while actively serving.

These limitations do not apply to any other volunteers of LDSPMA or any of those who have served previously the roles listed above.

Any other questions? Please email us at awards@ldspma.org or judging@ldspma.org.