The Story Prize

Last updated

The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first published in the United States during a calendar year. The founder of the prize is Julie Lindsey, and the director is Larry Dark. He was previously series editor for the annual short story anthology Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards from 1997 to 2002.

Contents

Publishers, authors, or agents may enter a short story collection written in English by a living author and published in the U.S. during a calendar year. Three finalists are announced in January. These authors participate in an award event, typically in March, at which they read from their work and have an on-stage discussion with Dark. At the end of the event, Julie Lindsey announces the winner, who, in addition to the prize money, receives an engraved silver bowl. From 2006-2020 the event was at the New School in New York City (co-sponsored with the Creative Writing Department). In 2021, the event was recorded via Zoom, and it has since been held at The Lotos Club.

In March 2019, Catapult published The Story Prize: 15 Years of Great Short Fiction, an anthology celebrating the award's fifteenth anniversary. [1]

Recipients

Story Prize winners and finalists
YearAuthorTitleResult
2004 Edwidge Danticat The Dew Breaker Winner
Cathy Day The Circus in Winter Finalist [2]
Joan Silber Ideas of Heaven
2005 Patrick O'Keeffe The Hill RoadWinner [3]
Jim Harrison The Summer He Didn't DieFinalist [3]
Maureen F. McHugh Mothers and Other Monsters
2006 Mary Gordon The Stories of Mary GordonWinner
Rick Bass The Lives of RocksFinalist
George Saunders In Persuasion Nation
2007 Jim Shepard Like You'd Understand, AnywayWinner [4]
Tessa Hadley Sunstroke and Other StoriesFinalist [4]
Vincent Lam Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures
2008 Tobias Wolff Our Story BeginsWinner [5]
Jhumpa Lahiri Unaccustomed Earth Finalist [5]
Joe Meno Demons in the Spring
2009 Daniyal Mueenuddin In Other Rooms, Other Wonders Winner [6] [7]
Victoria Patterson DriftFinalist [6] [7]
Wells Tower Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
2010 Anthony Doerr Memory WallWinner [8] [9]
Yiyun Li Gold Boy, Emerald GirlFinalist [8]
Suzanne Rivecca Death Is Not an Option
2011 Steven Millhauser We Others Winner [10]
Don DeLillo The Angel Esmeralda Finalist
Edith Pearlman Binocular Vision
2012 Claire Vaye Watkins Battleborn Winner
Dan Chaon Stay Awake Finalist [11]
Junot Díaz This Is How You Lose Her
2013 George Saunders Tenth of December Winner [12] [13]
Andrea Barrett ArchangelFinalist [13]
Rebecca Lee Bobcat
2014 Elizabeth McCracken ThunderstruckWinner [14] [15]
Francesca Marciano The Other LanguageFinalist [15]
Lorrie Moore Bark
2015 Adam Johnson Fortune Smiles Winner [16]
Charles Baxter There’s Something I Want You to DoFinalist [16]
Colum McCann Thirteen Ways of Looking
2016 Rick Bass For a Little WhileWinner [17]
Anna Noyes Goodnight, Beautiful WomenFinalist [17]
Helen Maryles Shankman They Were Like Family to Me (published in hardcover as In the Land of Armadillos )
2017 Elizabeth Strout Anything Is Possible Winner [18]
Daniel Alarcón The King Is Always Above the PeopleFinalist [18] [19]
Ottessa Moshfegh Homesick for Another World
2018 Lauren Groff FloridaWinner
Jamel Brinkley A Lucky ManFinalist
Deborah Eisenberg Your Duck Is My Duck
2019 Edwidge Danticat Everything InsideWinner [20]
Kali Fajardo-Anstine Sabrina & CorinaFinalist [20]
Zadie Smith Grand Union
2020 Deesha Philyaw The Secret Lives of Church Ladies Winner [21]
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum LikesFinalist [21]
Danielle Evans The Office of Historical Corrections
2021 Brandon Taylor Filthy AnimalsWinner [22] [23]
Lily King Five Tuesdays in WinterFinalist [23]
J. Robert Lennon Let Me Think
2022 Ling Ma Bliss MontageWinner [24]
Andrea Barrett Natural HistoryFinalist [25]
Morgan Talty Night of the Living Rez
2023 Paul Yoon The Hive and the HoneyWinner
Yiyun Li Wednesday's ChildFinalist [26]
Bennett Sims Other Minds and Other Stories

The Story Prize Spotlight Award

This $1,000 award is given to a short story collection of exceptional merit, as selected by the Director of the Story Prize, from among all entrants. Winners of The Story Prize Spotlight Award might be promising works by first-time authors, collections in alternative formats, or works that demonstrate an unusual perspective on the writers’ craft.

Related Research Articles

The Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, formerly known as the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, is a Canadian literary award presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada after an annual juried competition of works submitted by publishers. Alongside the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and the Giller Prize, it is considered one of the three main awards for Canadian fiction in English. Its eligibility criteria allow for it to garland collections of short stories as well as novels; works that were originally written and published in French are also eligible for the award when they appear in English translation.

The Journey Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by McClelland and Stewart and the Writers' Trust of Canada for the best short stories published by an emerging writer in a Canadian literary magazine. The award was endowed by James A. Michener, who donated the Canadian royalty earnings from his 1988 novel Journey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Saunders</span> American writer (born 1958)

George Saunders is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's, and GQ. He also contributed a weekly column, "American Psyche", to The Guardian's weekend magazine between 2006 and 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Olen Butler</span> American fiction writer

Robert Olen Butler is an American fiction writer. His short-story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993.

<i>Zoetrope: All-Story</i> American literary magazine

Zoetrope: All-Story is an American literary magazine that was launched in 1997 by Francis Ford Coppola and Adrienne Brodeur. All-Story intends to publish new short fiction. Zoetrope: All-Story has received the National Magazine Award for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth McCracken</span> American author (born September 16, 1966)

Elizabeth McCracken is an American author. She is a recipient of the PEN New England Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Johnson (writer)</span> American novelist and short story writer (born 1967)

Adam Johnson is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles. He is also a professor of English at Stanford University with a focus on creative writing.

Kevin Barry is an Irish writer. He is the author of three collections of short stories and three novels. City of Bohane was the winner of the 2013 International Dublin Literary Award. Beatlebone won the 2015 Goldsmiths Prize and is one of seven books by Irish authors nominated for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award, the world's most valuable annual literary fiction prize for books published in English. His 2019 novel Night Boat to Tangier was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. Barry is also an editor of Winter Papers, an arts and culture annual.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniyal Mueenuddin</span> Pakistani-American author (born 1963)

Daniyal Mueenuddin is a Pakistani-American author who writes in English. His short story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, has been translated into sixteen languages, and won The Story Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and other honors and critical acclaim.

Karen E. Bender is an American novelist and short story writer.

Kyle Minor is an American writer. Born and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida, Minor lived in Ohio and Kentucky before settling in Indiana. He studied writing at Ohio State University, where he was a three-time honoree in The Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Awards and a winner of the 2012 Iowa Review Prize for Short Fiction and Random House's Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers contest, and at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he reported on the 2012 United States presidential election for Esquire.

The Aurealis Awards are presented annually by the Australia-based Chimaera Publications and WASFF to published works in order to "recognise the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy, horror writers". To qualify, a work must have been first published by an Australian citizen or permanent resident between 1 January and 31 December of the corresponding year; the presentation ceremony is held the following year. It has grown from a small function of around 20 people to a two-day event attended by over 200 people.

The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987, the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but they are awards "by writers to writers." The panelists are five "writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field."

The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection is awarded by the PEN America "to exceptionally talented fiction writers whose debut work — a first novel or collection of short stories ... represent distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise." The winner is selected by a panel of PEN Members made up of three writers or editors. The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize was originally named the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers. The prize awards the debut writer a cash award of US$25,000.

Larry Dark has been the director of The Story Prize—a U.S. book award for short story collections—since its inception in 2004. He served as series editor of the O. Henry Awards for the 1997–2002 volumes. He has also compiled, edited, and introduced four other literary anthologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura van den Berg</span> American fiction writer (born 1983)

Laura van den Berg is an American fiction writer. She is the author of five works of fiction. Her first two collections of short stories were each shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, in 2010 and 2014. In 2021, she was awarded the Strauss Livings Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krys Lee</span> South Korean author, journalist, and translator

Krys Lee is a Korean-American author based in South Korea, a journalist, and translator. She wrote the short story collection Drifting House (2012) and the novel How I Became a North Korean (2016). She is an associate professor of creative writing and literature at Underwood International College, Yonsei University. She was awarded the Rome Prize, the Story Prize Spotlight Award, and the Honor Title in Adult Fiction Literature from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the BBC International Story Prize.

Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She also works as Social Media Manager and Associate Editor for Escape Pod.

Arinze Ifeakandu is a Nigerian writer known for the collection of his short stories, God's Children Are Little Broken Things, which won the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize for the US and Canada, and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize, the Lambda Awards, and received the Story Prize's Spotlight Award. He also won an O. Henry Prize for one of the stories.

God's Children Are Little Broken Things was a short story collection written by Nigerian author Arinze Ifeakandu and published by A Public Space in 2022. It provides nine distinct "stories about the joys and tribulations of queer love in contemporary Nigeria".

References

  1. ↑ "The Story Prize: 15 Years of Great Short Fiction ed. by Larry Dark (Pr – Catapult". books.catapult.co. Archived from the original on 2019-01-10.
  2. ↑ Lauren Mechling (January 19, 2005). "He Tells the Story Of the Story Prize". New York Sun . Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  3. 1 2 Sarah Crown (January 26, 2006). "O'Keeffe takes Hill Road to glory". The Guardian . Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  4. 1 2 Jean Hartig (February 29, 2008). "Jim Shepard Wins Story Prize: Postcard From New York City". Poets & Writers . Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  5. 1 2 Michaud (March 4, 2009). "Tobias Wolff wins Story Prize for short fiction". Reuters. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  6. 1 2 Thessaly La Force (March 4, 2010). "Daniyal Mueenuddin Wins the Story Prize". New Yorker . Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  7. 1 2 "Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders Wins The Story Prize", Larry Dark, official TSP Blog, March 3, 2010
  8. 1 2 "TSP: Anthony Doerr's Memory Wall Wins The Story Prize". The Story Prize. 2011-03-03. Retrieved 2023-04-06.
  9. ↑ "Anthony Doerr wins Short Story award". BBC. April 8, 2011. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  10. ↑ Aparna Narayanan (March 26, 2012). "The Story Prize awards Steven Millhauser, honors Don DeLillo and Edith Pearlman". Capital New York . Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  11. ↑ Carolyn Kellogg (January 16, 2013). "Congrats to the Story Prize finalists". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  12. ↑ "George Saunders Wins His First Book Award, The Story Prize, for Tenth of December", Larry Dark, official TSP Blog, March 5, 2014
  13. 1 2 "U.S. author George Saunders wins Story Prize for short fiction". Reuters. March 5, 2014. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  14. ↑ "The Winner of The Story Prize Is Thunderstruck by Elizabeth McCracken", Larry Dark, official TSP Blog, March 4, 2015
  15. 1 2 "Elizabeth McCracken wins Story Prize for Thunderstruck". The Guardian . Reuters. March 4, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  16. 1 2 "Adam Johnson wins $20,000 Story Prize for short fiction". Washington Post . Associated Press. March 2, 2016. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  17. 1 2 McMurtrie, John (March 8, 2017). "Rick Bass wins Story Prize". San Francisco Chronicle . Retrieved 2022-02-11.
  18. 1 2 John McMurtrie (February 28, 2018). "Elizabeth Strout wins Story Prize for 'Anything Is Possible". San Francisco Chronicle .
  19. ↑ "Announcing the 2018 Story Prize Finalists". Literary Hub . January 9, 2018.
  20. 1 2 "Author Edwidge Danticat wins $20,000 Story Prize". Associated Press . February 26, 2020.
  21. 1 2 "Winner of the Story Prize Is Revealed". Kirkus Reviews . March 10, 2021.
  22. ↑ "Brandon Taylor's 'Filthy Animals' wins $20,000 Story Prize". ABC News . March 13, 2022.
  23. 1 2 "Here Are This Year's Finalists for the Story Prize". LitHub . February 8, 2022.
  24. ↑ "Ling Ma's Bliss Montage wins $20,000 Story Prize". ABC News . January 10, 2023.
  25. ↑ "Here Are This Year's Finalists for the Story Prize". LitHub . January 10, 2023.
  26. ↑ "Here are this year's finalists for The Story Prize". LitHub. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  27. ↑ "TSP: Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy is the Winner of the Story Prize Spotlight Award". 17 January 2019.
  28. ↑ "TSP: The Trojan War Museum by Ayşe Papatya Bucak is the Winner of the Story Prize Spotlight Award". 21 January 2020.
  29. ↑ "TSP: Born into This by Adam Thompson is the Winner of the Story Prize Spotlight Award". 22 February 2022.
  30. ↑ "TSP: God's Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu is the Winner of the Story Prize Spotlight Award". 7 February 2023.
  31. ↑ "TSP: God's The Goth House Experiment by SJ Sindu is the Winner of the Story Prize Spotlight Award". 1 February 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.