Narrative Prize


The $5,000 Narrative Prize is awarded annually for the best short story, novel excerpt, poem, graphic story, or work of literary nonfiction by a new or emerging writer. All works published in the magazine each year are considered for the prize. During each year, previously unpublished works may be submitted for consideration for the Narrative Prize.

The deadline for entries for each year’s award is June 15. Works submitted after June 15 are considered for the following year’s prize.


The prize is announced in October and is given to the best work published by a new or emerging writer, as judged by the magazine’s editors. In some years the prize may be divided between winners when more than one work merits the award. The Narrative Prize is not a contest but an award.

Click here to submit your work. (See our Guidelines.)


Narrative Prize Winners


  • Madeleine Cravens

    October Phone Call and Other Poems

    2024 Narrative Prize Winner
    My loneliness is not less because I understand it more.

  • Neha Chaudhary-Kamdar

    Kartika

    2023 Narrative Prize Winner
    It was the day I told a lie that would embarrass me for years to come.

  • Sarah Balakrishnan

    Rouses Point

    2022 Narrative Prize Winner
    It was as if the stranger in the train carriage had taken out a knife.

  • Morgan Talty

    The Gambler

    2021 Narrative Prize Winner
    I was sweating as I turned left into an unknown world.

  • Tryphena L. Yeboah

    If the Body Makes a Sound

    2021 Narrative Prize Winner
    What kind of woman is terrified by her own power?

  • Gbenga Adesina

    Across the Sea: A Sequence

    2020 Narrative Prize Winner
    Your prayer is to the fitful sleep of the dead.

  • Brenden Willey

    Things That Don’t Keep a Lightning Bug Alive

    2019 Narrative Prize Winner
    I said I am ready because I was and I wasn’t but wanted to be.

  • Paisley Rekdal

    Quiver and Other Poems

    2018 Narrative Prize Winner
    Is this what memory is: static, unchangeable mind we step into?

  • Javier Zamora

    Sonoran Song and Other Poems

    2017 Narrative Prize Winner
    We were lost and didn’t know which star was north what was east west.

  • Sara Houghteling

    The Thomas Cantor

    2016 Narrative Prize Winner
    The chords cluster and the melody seems to trip and tangle.

  • Ocean Vuong

    No One Knows the Way to Heaven

    2015 Narrative Prize Winner
    Why are my hands always empty when touching those I love?

  • Austin Smith

    The Halverson Brothers

    2014 Narrative Prize Winner
    We’ve tried, but it seems it is in the stars for us to hate each other.

  • Kirstin Valdez Quade

    Nemecia

    2013 Narrative Prize Winner
    I was afraid of Nemecia because I knew her greatest secret.

  • Nathan Poole

    Stretch Out Your Hand

    2012 Narrative Prize Winner
    My sister’s fever wasn’t gone at all, but dazzling—suspended over us.

  • Natalie Diaz

    Downhill Triolets

    2012 Narrative Prize Winner
    Ring at 2 a.m. means meth’s got my brother in the slammer again.

  • Kevin A. González

    Christmas Eve

    2011 Narrative Prize Winner
    The first guy who buys him a drink becomes his new son.

  • Anthony Marra

    Chechnya

    2010 Narrative Prize Winner
    Sonja slapped her sister. How could she shed tears for the past?

  • Maud Newton

    When the Flock Changed

    2009 Narrative Prize Winner
    My mother was a preacher until the cops shut her down.

  • Alexi Zentner

    Trapline

    2008 Narrative Prize Winner
    It was so dark he could barely make out the shape of his own body.

  • Michael Dickman

    Returning to Church

    2008 Narrative Prize Winner
    The light through the stained-glass window was snow, not Grace.

  • Alma García

    Letter to El Mateo

    2007 Narrative Prize Winner
    I don’t talk you because I am embarrass, I hear ugly in my mouth.

  • Saidiya Hartman

    A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route

    2007 Narrative Prize Winner
    This is the afterlife of slavery. I, too, am the afterlife of slavery.

  • Mermer Blakeslee

    Leenie

    2006 Narrative Prize Winner
    She called her a city girl like she was someone strange.

  • Ned Parker

    On to Baghdad

    2006 Narrative Prize Winner
    You trembled at the thought of death in a biological attack.

  • Pia Z. Ehrhardt

    Famous Fathers

    2005 Narrative Prize Winner
    “Quit sucking up to him. He’s not famous at home.”

  • Min Jin Lee

    Axis of Happiness

    2004 Narrative Prize Winner
    I shoved the hefty Bible into the secret space I’d made for it.