The finalists for the 2026 Diana Jones Emerging Designer Program have been announced, with those individuals being:
- Glaiza Champion, a game designer, writer, performer, podcaster, and variety streamer who organizes their activity under the handle "Classical Adventures for One"
- Elijah Djan, the co-founder and CEO of Fintr, a South African financial education company that has released FinMaster (a board game that incorporates financial management principles), Fintr4Schools (a gamified Economic Management Sciences curriculum, and Mini Millionaires (a newsletter for parents to help kids learn positive money habits. Djan created these designs with Fintr co-founder and COO Danei Rall.
- Kodi Gonzaga, a writer and TTRPG designer whose games include Extra Ordinary, In This Echoing World, and Down the Road Through the End of the World. You can find more writing and games at their website.
- Annabel Lee Journey, a designer whose first publication, Cretaceous Rails, debuted in 2025 from Spielcraft Games. Journey was a finalist in the Zenobia II game design competition with Aguirre and, to quote from the Diana Jones description, "[i]nspired by obscure historical personages, she is currently working on games about history's most successful swindler, Gregor MacGregor, and the audacious literary liar John Mandeville".
- Gene Koo, a designer who self-published The Bonsai Diary in 2025 and whose game Color Jam, co-designed with Joe Kell, was released in 2026 by Lunarpunk Games. Koo has many more designs available at Sticky Doodler, including They must not see this and Time travel with loose change.
- J Strautman, who ran their actual play series Planet Arcana for one hundred episodes and who released A Fool's Errand — an RPG that uses tarot cards, is set in the Planet Arcana world, and was co-designed with B Marsollier — in 2025. Discover podcasts, music, and more games by Strautman at their website: Yes No Goodbye.
- Connie Vogelmann, designer of Apiary and Wyrmspan, both from Stonemaier Games, and the keynote presenter at Unpub Festival 2026, with her speech covering soft skills that designers need to be successful. You can find her on Bluesky.
The committee behind the Diana Jones Award launched its Emerging Designer Program in 2021 to amplify "voices of up-and-coming designers, with a focus on creators from marginalized communities". The winner (or winners) will be announced prior to Gen Con 2026 and receive an expenses-paid trip to that convention, along with other prizes.
