Recent Awards for Our Authors

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

Kirstin Valdez Quade, winner of the 2013 Narrative Prize, has won the 2022 Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her novel The Five Wounds. The award carries a $10,000 prize and is given to a young writer of considerable literary talent for a work published in the previous year. The Five Wounds also won The Center for Fiction 2021 First Novel Prize, with a $15,000 award. An excerpt from the novel was originally published in Narrative, and more of Quade’s fiction and nonfiction is available in our Archive.

Yoon Choi’s story collection Skinship has received the 2022 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for best debut story collection. The $25,000 prize is given to an author whose debut collection of short stories represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise for future work. Two of Choi’s stories, including “The Church of Abundant Life”—the first story in Skinship—originally appeared in Narrative and are available in our Archive.

Diane Seuss’s poetry collection frank: sonnets has been awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The Pulitzer Committee called the book “a virtuosic collection that inventively expands the sonnet form to confront the messy contradictions of contemporary America.” Seuss also won the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry as well as the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection. Seuss’s poem “Am I Supposed to Know the Difference between Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry? I Don’t.” is available in our Archive.

Catherine Raven’s nonfiction work Fox & I has won the 2022 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Award for “a work that exemplifies literary excellence on the subject of the physical or biological sciences and communicates complex scientific concepts to a lay audience.” The award comes with a $10,000 prize. Raven’s nature essay “Top Drama Will Be Renewed for Another Season” is available in our Archive.

Natalie Diaz, winner of the 2012 Narrative Prize, has been awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The Pulitzer Committee called Diaz’s book Postcolonial Love Poem “a collection of tender, heart-wrenching and defiant poems that explore what it means to love and be loved in an America beset by conflict.” Diaz was also a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. Her poetry and fiction can be found in our Archive.

Ifeoma Sesiana Amobi’s story “A Small Blip on an Eternal Timeline” has been selected for the Pushcart Prize series, 2022. You can read the story in our Archive.

Kevin A. González, winner of the 2011 Narrative Prize, has been named a 2021 Creative Nonfiction Grantee by the Whiting Foundation. In awarding the $40,000 grant, the jury wrote, “González’s voice grabs you by the collar, as funny and combative in its critique of imperialism as it is sympathetic and wise in its portraits of the author’s family.” González’s fiction can be found in our Archive.

Louise Glück has been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. In giving the award to Glück, the Nobel Committee cited her “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” Glück’s other honors include the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Humanities Medal, presented by President Barack Obama. Her poem “Terminal Resemblance” can be found in our Archive.

Austin Smith’s story “Late Rumspringa” has been selected for the Pushcart Prize series, 2021. Smith’s poetry and fiction, including “The Halverson Brothers,” for which he won the 2014 Narrative Prize, can be found in our Archive.

Raven Leilani’s novel Luster has won the National Book Critics Circle 2021 John Leonard Award for the best first book in any genre. The award, established in 2013, has also been given to Narrative Prize winners Anthony Marra and Kirstin Valdez Quade. Leilani was also named a 2020 “5 Under 35” honoree by the National Book Foundation, and Luster received the 2020 Kirkus Prize, with its $50,000 award. Leilani was the winner of Narrative’s Ninth Annual Poetry Contest, and her poems can be found in our Archive.

Valzhyna Mort has won the 2021 Griffin International Poetry Prize for her collection Music for the Dead and Resurrected. The award carries a C$65,000 prize and is the world’s largest international prize for a first-edition single collection of poetry written in or translated into English. Mort’s poetry can be found in our Archive.

Ladan Osman has received a 2021 Whiting Award. The $50,000 awards are based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. In giving the award to Osman, the Whiting selection committee wrote, “Ladan Osman’s dazzling and incisive poetry creates vibrant connections between generations of women, between the self and history, and between our bodies and the natural world.” Osman’s poetry can be found in our Archive.

Jennifer Huang has won the 2021 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry for their collection Return Flight. The award carries a $10,000 prize. Huang’s poem “Nonconcordant” can be found in our Archive.

Joyce Carol Oates has won the 2020 Prix mondial Cino Del Duca, which is worth 200,000 euros. The French award recognises an author whose work constitutes a message of modern humanism. Oates also won the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the category of mystery/thriller for her novel A Book of American Martyrs. An excerpt from the novel was originally published in Narrative, as was Oates’s memoir “The Lost Sister: An Elegy,” selected for the Best American Essays, 2016. More of Oates’s work is available in our Archive.

Jericho Brown’s poetry collection The Tradition has won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The Pulitzer committee called the work “a collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence.” He also received the 2020 Lambda Literary Trustee Award, given annually to an extraordinary individual who has broken new ground in the field of LGBTQ literature and culture. Read his poem “The Tradition” in our Archive.

Alice Hoffman has won the 2020 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for her novel The World That We Knew. The award, which carries a $10,000 prize, recognizes the power of the written word to promote peace. Work by Hoffman can be found in our Archive.

Daniel Mason has received the 2020 Joyce Carol Oates Prize from the Simpson Literary Project. The $50,000 award honors a mid-career author of fiction who has earned a distinguished reputation and the widespread approbation and gratitude of readers. Anthony Marra, winner of the 2012 Narrative Prize, was the 2018 winner. An excerpt from Mason’s novel The Winter Soldier can be found in our Archive.

Aria Aber has received a 2020 Whiting Award. The $50,000 awards are based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. Aber’s poetry can be found in our Archive.

Saidiya Hartman, winner of the 2007 Narrative Prize, has won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism for Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. The National Book Critics Circle honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature. Hartman was also named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. An excerpt from Hartman’s memoir Lose Your Mother: A Journal Along the Atlantic Slave Route is available in Narrative’s Archive.

Arthur Sze has won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry. The $10,000 prize was originally established in 1950 to celebrate the best writing in America. A number of Sze’s poems, as well as a recording of the author reading his work, is available in Narrative’s Archive.

Ocean Vuong, winner of the 2015 Narrative Prize, has been named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. The MacArthur Fellowship is a $625,000, no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential. Vuong also won a 2020 American Book Award, recognizing outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community. A number of Vuong’s poems, as well as an interview with the author, are available in Narrative’s Archive.

Lisa Cupolo has won the 2020 W. S. Porter Prize for her story collection Have Mercy on Us. Three of the collection’s stories were originally published in Narrative and are available in our Archive.

Richard Bausch’s story “In That Time” has been selected for the Pushcart Prize series, 2020. More than a dozen selections by Bausch, who has previously been honored with the Rea Award for his contributions to the discipline of the short story form, are available in Narrative’s Archive.

Cally Fiedorek’s story “In The Arms of Saturday Night” has been selected for the Pushcart Prize series, 2020. Fiedorek’s stories “Eminent Domain” and “People (Interlude)” can be found in the Archive.

Hal Crowther’s essay “Dante on Broadway” has been selected for the Pushcart Prize series, 2020. Crowther’s essay “Christian Soldiers” was selected the previous year for the Pushcart Prize series, 2019, and received notable mention in the Best American Essays, 2018. His essay collection Freedom Fighters and Hell Raisers: A Gallery of Memorable Southerners was the winner of the 2019 IPPY Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction. More of Crowther’s nonfiction is available in our Archive.

Jane Delury has received the 2019 American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction for her novel-in-stories The Balcony. The novel includes the work “Nothing of Consequence,” originally published in Narrative and selected for the O. Henry Prize Stories in 2011.

Anthony Marra, winner of the 2012 Narrative Prize, has won the $50,000 Simpson Family Literary Prize (2018), a collaboration of the Lafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation and the University of California at Berkeley English department. Marra also received the 2016 American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Rosenthal Family Foundation Award in Literature for his story collection The Tsar of Love and Techno. The collection included the stories “Granddaughters” and “The Palace of the People,” which first appeared in Narrative. Marra won the $4,000 Narrative Prize after his first published story, “Chechnya,” appeared in Narrative, followed by several other stories and an essay.

Kwame Dawes has received a 2019 Windham Campbell Prize. The $150,000 prize calls attention to literary achievement and provides writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns. Dawes’s poetry can be found in our Archive.

Tyree Daye has received a 2019 Whiting Award. The $50,000 awards are based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. Daye’s poetry can be found in our Archive.

Sherman Alexie’s story “A Vacuum Is a Space Entirely Devoid of Matter” and     T. Coraghessan Boyle’s story “Warrior Jesus” received notable mentions in the Best American Short Stories, 2018.

Annie Proulx has won the 2018 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, recognizing an experienced writer whose body of work has “told us something new about the American experience.” Read Proulx’s story “Heart Songs” in our Archive.

Mary Gaitskill, Rick Moody, and     Brenda Shaughnessy have won the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2018 Awards in Literature. The $10,000 awards are presented each year to honor exceptional accomplishment in literature. We have a number of works by Gaitskill, Moody, and Shaughnessy in our Archive.

Lydia Conklin has been named a 2018 winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Each year the Rona Jaffe Foundation awards six $30,000 prizes to emerging women writers singled out for excellence and exceptional talent. Conklin’s short story “Bear With Me,” as well as a number of her cartoons, are available in our Archive.

Alberto Álvaro Ríos has won the 2018 Shelley Award, presented annually to recognize individuals who have promoted public support for arts and culture. The award is the highest distinction Arizona offers in arts advocacy within the state. A number of Ríos’s poems can be found in our Archive.

Gail Godwin’s novel Grief Cottage has been named one of the Top 10 Books of 2017 by Publisher’s Weekly. Read an excerpt from Godwin’s novel in our Archive.

Jhumpa Lahiri has won the 2017 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Read Lahiri’s story “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” in our Archive.

Rick Bass’s story collection For a Little While has won the 2017 Story Prize. Each year the prize honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Bass’s novella “Lease Hound,” which appeared in For a Little While, was published in our Stories of the Week: 2015–2016 issue.

Sharon Olds has won the Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award, with a prize of $100,000. Olds was deemed “an American master and a national treasure.” Read her poem “September 2001, New York City” in our Archive.

Ellen Bass has been named a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. The Academy of American Poets’ Board of Chancellors was established in 1946 and is an honorary group of esteemed poets who consult with the organization on artistic matters and serve as ambassadors of poetry in the world at large. A number of Bass’s poems are available in our Archive.

Junot Díaz has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The Academy was founded in 1898 as an honor society of the country’s leading architects, artists, composers, and writers. Read an interview with Díaz in our Archive.

Margaret Atwood has won the National Book Critics Circle’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. Named after the first president of the National Book Critics Circle, the award is given annually to a person or institution who has, over time, made significant contributions to book culture. Read an interview with Atwood in our Archive.

Ama Codjoe has won a 2017 Writers’ Award from the Rona Jaffe Foundation. The 30,000 award supports women writers of exceptional talent, especially those in the early stages of their writing careers. Read Codjoe’s poetry in our Archive.

Jean Valentine has won Yale’s 2017 Bollingen Prize for Poetry, with a cash award of $165,000. The prize honors the literary accomplishments of poets whose work continues to define modern American literature, and previous winners include Ezra Pound, E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, W. S. Merwin, and many others. A number of Valentine’s poems are available in our Archive.

Paisley Rekdal has been named Utah’s new poet laureate. The post, established in 1997, is a governor-appointed advocate for literature and the arts throughout the state. A number of Rekdal’s poems are available in our Archive.

Jane Lancellotti’s essay “If You Can’t Say Anything Nice, Write a One-Star Review” has been selected for the Pushcart Prize series, 2017. A number of Lancellotti’s works are available in our Archive.

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