Biographers International Organization (BIO) has selected Bill Thomas, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Doubleday, as the recipient of its 2026 Editorial Excellence Award. The annual award, established in 2014, honors an editor whose work has made an outstanding contribution to biography and literature.

Thomas will receive the award at a special BIO event on Tuesday, October 6, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. The event is free and open to the public, with registration required.

For more than three decades, Thomas has played a significant role in shaping the nonfiction and literary landscape at Doubleday. He joined the publisher as an editor in 1993, became Editor-in-Chief in 1998, and was named Publisher and Editor-in-Chief in 2008.

During his leadership, Doubleday has published nine Pulitzer Prize winners, three National Book Award winners, and five National Book Critics Circle Award winners. The house has also published hundreds of New York Times bestsellers and more than 125 New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year.

Alongside his editorial and management responsibilities, Thomas has worked closely with a distinguished group of nonfiction authors, including Patrick Radden Keefe, Hampton Sides, Candice Millard, Scott Anderson, David Grann, Jon Krakauer, Jane Mayer, and Joe Torre. His fiction authors have included Aimee Bender, Mark Haddon, Jonathan Lethem, and Colson Whitehead.

Kathleen Stone, chair of the BIO award committee, said Thomas and the authors he has worked with have “excited the literary world with innovative subject matter, creative storytelling and deep research” in nonfiction.

His authors have similarly emphasized both his editorial judgment and his commitment to their work.

“I’ve been working with Bill Thomas for twenty years, and there is nobody like him in publishing, no keener eye, no steadier hand,” said Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain, Say Nothing, The Snakehead, and London Falling. “He has championed and helped shape so much of the great literature of this century, across fiction and nonfiction. I feel humbled and lucky to work with him.”

Biographer Hampton Sides, author of The Wide, Wide Sea, On Desperate Ground, In the Kingdom of Ice, Hellhound on His Trail, and Blood and Thunder, described Thomas as “a ferocious champion of books” and praised his ability to help authors make their work “sparkle and shine.”

Candice Millard, whose biographies include River of the Gods, Hero of the Empire, Destiny of the Republic, and The River of Doubt, has worked with Thomas on every book she has written. “He is the perfect editor, a true scholar, and a genuine friend,” she said.

The October 6 celebration will feature remarks from Scott Anderson, David Grann, Millard, Keefe, and Sides.

The Editorial Excellence Award has been presented by BIO since 2014. Previous recipients include Bob Bender, Tim Duggan, Robert Gottlieb, Gerald Howard, Michael Korda, Kate Medina, Gayatri Patnaik, Jonathan Segal, Ileene Smith, Nan A. Talese, and Robert Weil.

BIO members and the public are invited to join us in honoring Bill Thomas on October 6. The event is free, but registration is required.