Recent Awards for Our Writers

Congratulations to the following authors,
whose works have received notable distinctions:

James Salter has been named one of the first recipients of the Donald Windham–Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes at Yale University for his outstanding achievement in fiction. Salter’s award is one of nine Windham Campbell prizes of $150,000 awarded this year, one of the largest literary prizes in the world. Selections from Salter’s work, including audio and video readings, essays, and a novel excerpt, can be found in Narrative’s archives. For an intimate look into Salter’s life and work, Andrew Southam’s exclusive gallery on the award-winning author “A Writer’s Life” is available in Narrative’s Spring 2013 issue.

Robert Olen Butler has been named the 2013 winner of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature at Montgomery College. Butler is the seventeenth recipient of the award, joining such writers as William Styron, John Barth, Joyce Carol Oates, E. L. Doctorow, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Edward Albee, and Grace Paley. Butler will formally receive the award, give a public talk to all conference attendees, and teach a master class for select students at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival in Rockville, Maryland, in October. Selections from Butler’s work, including short stories, video readings, novel excerpts, and handwritten pages from early drafts of Butler’s first novel, The Alleys of Eden, can be found in Narrative’s archives. Butler’s Weegee Stories can also be found in the Narrative Store.

Taymiya R. Zaman’s short story “Thirst” has been selected for The Pushcart Prize Series, 2014. “Thirst” also won Third Place in Narrative’s Spring 2012 Story Contest and is Zaman’s first published story.

Madhuri Vijay’s short story “Lorry Raja” has been selected for The Pushcart Prize Series, 2014 and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, 2013. “Lorry Raja” also won First Place in Narrative’s 2011 N30B Contest and is Vijay’s first published story.

Marianne Boruch’s poetry collection The Book of Hours has received the 2013 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. The $100,000 prize is one of the largest poetry awards in America. Selections from Boruch’s work can be found in Narrative’s archives, including four poems from her winning poetry collection, The Book of Hours.

Richard Bausch has been named the 2012 winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story. The $30,000 prize is awarded annually to a writer whose work has made a “significant contribution to the discipline of the short story form.” More than a dozen selections from Bausch’s work can be found in Narrative’s archives, including “Islands,” an excerpt from his novel, Before, During, After.

Terese Svoboda has been named one of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation’s 2013 Fellows for Fiction. Selections from Svoboda’s work, including short stories and poetry, can be found in Narrative’s archives. Svoboda’s poem “Decapitated” won second place is Narrative’s Fourth Annual Poetry Contest.

Tessa Mellas has received the 2013 Iowa Short Fiction Award for her short story collection Lungs Full of Noise. A story from the collection, “Bibi from Jupiter,” can be found in Narrative’s Stories of the Week: 2012–2013 issue.

W. S. Merwin has been named the first recipient of the International Zbigniew Herbert Prize, awarded by the Warsaw-based Zbigniew Herbert Foundation. The $50,000 prize is awarded in memory of the late Polish writer. Selections from W. S. Merwin’s work can be found in Narrative’s archives.

Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s collection of short fiction Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club received the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The first story in the collection, “He Has Gone to be with the Women,” first published in Narrative, can be found in our Stories of the Week: 2010–2011 issue.

Kirstin Valdez Quade’s “Nemecia” has been selected to appear in The Best American Short Stories, 2013. “Nemecia” won first place is Narrative’s Spring 2012 Story Contest.

Alice Munro has received an honorable mention in The Pushcart Prize Series, 2013. The winning story “To Reach Japan” can be found in Narrative’s Winter 2012 issue.

Anthony Marra has received this year’s prestigious Whiting Writers’ Award, which every year provides $50,000 each to ten emerging authors, allowing them to write. His first published story, “Chechnya,” appeared in Narrative, followed by several other stories.

Natalie Diaz has received a 2012 Lannan Literary Fellowship. The Lannan Foundation describes itself as “dedicated to cultural freedom, diversity and creativity through projects which support exceptional contemporary artists and writers, as well as inspired Native activists in rural indigenous communities.” Poetry from Diaz’s latest collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press, 2012), can be found in Narrative’s Poems of the Week: 2012–2013 issue.

Maria Hummel has been awarded the 2013 APR/Honickman First Book Prize for her poetry manuscript House and Fire. Selections from Hummel’s work can be found in Narrative’s Fall 2011 issue.

Will Schutt has been named a winner in the 2012 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. Yale University Press will publish Schutt’s poetry collection, Westerly, in April 2013. His poem “Beach Lane” can be found in Narrative’s Winter 2012 issue.

Aleksandra Crapanzano’s essay “The Magic Piano” received an honorable mention in The Pushcart Prize Series, 2013. More selections from Crapanzano’s work can be found in Narrative.

Tomás Q. Morín has released his poetry collection, A Larger Country, 2012 winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. Says Tom Sleigh, in the introduction to the volume, “Tomás Q. Morín’s poems are as infectious and spooky and darkly humorous as the Brothers Grimm, as shapely and colloquial and eloquent as John Donne, and as skeptical and addicted to history-as-fable as Zbigniew Herbert.” Poetry from Morín can be found in Narrative’s Spring 2012 issue.

Jennifer duBois's novel, A Partial History of Lost Causes, is a 2012 5 Under 35 Honoree, the National Book Foundation's celebration of young fiction writers. An excerpt from the award-winning novel can be found in Narrative’s Stories of the Week: 2011–2012 issue.

E. L. Doctorow received the 2012 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, acknowledging him in the highest rank of American Literature. His short story “The Writer in the Family” can be found in Narrative’s Fall 2012 issue.

Ben Lerner’s first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, has been named runner-up for the 2012 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. Selections from Lerner’s work can be found in Narrative’s Fall 2009 issue.

Shann Ray’s collection of short stories American Masculine received the 2012 American Book Award. A story from American Masculine, “Mrs. Secrest,” first published in Narrative, can be found in our Fall 2005 issue.

Paula McLain’s short story “Trust” has been selected to appear in the 2013 edition of New Stories from the Southwest. McLain’s story appeared in Narrative’s Stories of the Week: 2009–2010 issue.

Anthony Marra’s “The Palace of the People” has been selected to appear in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012. “The Palace of the People” was first published in Narrative’s Winter 2011 issue.

Laura Kasischke’s poetry collection Space, in Chains received the National Book Critics Circle award for poetry. An excerpt from Space, in Chains can be found in Narrative’s Fall 2010 issue.

Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad received the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. An excerpt from Egan’s novel can be found in Narrative’s Winter 2011 issue.

Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and     C. D. Wright’s One with Others have been named 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners. Selections from Wright’s work can be found in Narrative’s Winter 2011 issue.

Lynn Freed’s short story “Sunshine” and     Jane Delury’s story “Nothing of Consequence” have been selected for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, 2011. Other of Freed’s works in Narrative are available here. Delury’s story also won Second Place in Narrative’s Spring 2009 Story Contest.

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s short story “Arthur Arellano” has been selected as one of the Million Writers Award Top Ten Online Stories of 2011.     Megan Mayhew Bergman’s story “Birds of a Lesser Paradise” was recognized as one of the notable stories of 2011 by the Million Writers Award judges.

Katherine Jamieson’s Readers’ Narrative “Georgetown, Guyana” has been selected for Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011. The essay was first published in Narrative’s Fall 2008 issue.

Anthony Marra’s short story “Chechnya” has been selected for The Pushcart Prize Series, 2011. “Chechnya” also won First Place in Narrative’s Spring 2009 Story Contest and is Marra’s first published story.     Elea Carey’s story “Dodge” and Pete Fromm’s story “Peas” were awarded special mention in the 2011 Puschart collection.

Tim Johnston’s “Two Years” has been selected to appear in Best of the West, 2011.

Tom Barbash’s “The Women” has been selected to appear in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011. “The Women” was first published in Narrative’s Winter 2010 issue.