# The Story Prize

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.
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 to 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.

## Recipients

Story Prize winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2004 | Edwidge Danticat | The Dew Breaker | Winner |
| 2004 | Cathy Day | The Circus in Winter | Finalist |
| 2004 | Joan Silber | Ideas of Heaven | Finalist |
| 2005 | Patrick O'Keeffe | The Hill Road | Winner |
| 2005 | Jim Harrison | The Summer He Didn't Die | Finalist |
| 2005 | Maureen F. McHugh | Mothers and Other Monsters | Finalist |
| 2006 | Mary Gordon | The Stories of Mary Gordon | Winner |
| 2006 | Rick Bass | The Lives of Rocks | Finalist |
| 2006 | George Saunders | In Persuasion Nation | Finalist |
| 2007 | Jim Shepard | Like You'd Understand, Anyway | Winner |
| 2007 | Tessa Hadley | Sunstroke and Other Stories | Finalist |
| 2007 | Vincent Lam | Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures | Finalist |
| 2008 | Tobias Wolff | Our Story Begins | Winner |
| 2008 | Jhumpa Lahiri | Unaccustomed Earth | Finalist |
| 2008 | Joe Meno | Demons in the Spring | Finalist |
| 2009 | Daniyal Mueenuddin | In Other Rooms, Other Wonders | Winner |
| 2009 | Victoria Patterson | Drift | Finalist |
| 2009 | Wells Tower | Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned | Finalist |
| 2010 | Anthony Doerr | Memory Wall | Winner |
| 2010 | Yiyun Li | Gold Boy, Emerald Girl | Finalist |
| 2010 | Suzanne Rivecca | Death Is Not an Option | Finalist |
| 2011 | Steven Millhauser | We Others | Winner |
| 2011 | Don DeLillo | The Angel Esmeralda | Finalist |
| 2011 | Edith Pearlman | Binocular Vision | Finalist |
| 2012 | Claire Vaye Watkins | Battleborn | Winner |
| 2012 | Dan Chaon | Stay Awake | Finalist |
| 2012 | Junot Díaz | This Is How You Lose Her | Finalist |
| 2013 | George Saunders | Tenth of December | Winner |
| 2013 | Andrea Barrett | Archangel | Finalist |
| 2013 | Rebecca Lee | Bobcat | Finalist |
| 2014 | Elizabeth McCracken | Thunderstruck | Winner |
| 2014 | Francesca Marciano | The Other Language | Finalist |
| 2014 | Lorrie Moore | Bark | Finalist |
| 2015 | Adam Johnson | Fortune Smiles | Winner |
| 2015 | Charles Baxter | There’s Something I Want You to Do | Finalist |
| 2015 | Colum McCann | Thirteen Ways of Looking | Finalist |
| 2016 | Rick Bass | For a Little While | Winner |
| 2016 | Anna Noyes | Goodnight, Beautiful Women | Finalist |
| 2016 | Helen Maryles Shankman | They Were Like Family to Me (published in hardcover as In the Land of Armadillos) | Finalist |
| 2017 | Elizabeth Strout | Anything Is Possible | Winner |
| 2017 | Daniel Alarcón | The King Is Always Above the People | Finalist |
| 2017 | Ottessa Moshfegh | Homesick for Another World | Finalist |
| 2018 | Lauren Groff | Florida | Winner |
| 2018 | Jamel Brinkley | A Lucky Man | Finalist |
| 2018 | Deborah Eisenberg | Your Duck Is My Duck | Finalist |
| 2019 | Edwidge Danticat | Everything Inside | Winner |
| 2019 | Kali Fajardo-Anstine | Sabrina & Corina | Finalist |
| 2019 | Zadie Smith | Grand Union | Finalist |
| 2020 | Deesha Philyaw | The Secret Lives of Church Ladies | Winner |
| 2020 | Sarah Shun-lien Bynum | Likes | Finalist |
| 2020 | Danielle Evans | The Office of Historical Corrections | Finalist |
| 2021 | Brandon Taylor | Filthy Animals | Winner |
| 2021 | Lily King | Five Tuesdays in Winter | Finalist |
| 2021 | J. Robert Lennon | Let Me Think | Finalist |
| 2022 | Ling Ma | Bliss Montage | Winner |
| 2022 | Andrea Barrett | Natural History | Finalist |
| 2022 | Morgan Talty | Night of the Living Rez | Finalist |
| 2024 | Paul Yoon | The Hive and the Honey | Winner |
| 2024 | Yiyun Li | Wednesday's Child | Finalist |
| 2024 | Bennett Sims | Other Minds and Other Stories | Finalist |
| 2025 | Fiona McFarlane | Highway Thirteen | Finalist |
| 2025 | Ruben Reyes Jr. | There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven | Finalist |
| 2025 | Jessi Jezewska Stevens | Ghost Pains | Finalist |

## 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.
| Year | Winner | Work |
| 2012 | Krys Lee | Drifting House |
| 2013 | Ben Stroud | Byzantium |
| 2014 | Kyle Minor | Praying Drunk |
| 2015 | Adrian Tomine | Killing and Dying |
| 2016 | Randa Jarrar | Him, Me, Muhammad Ali |
| 2017 | Lee Conell | Subcortical |
| 2018 | Akil Kumarasamy | Half Gods |
| 2019 | Ayşe Papatya Bucak | The Trojan War Museum |
| 2020 | Asako Serizawa | Inheritors |
| 2021 | Adam Thompson | Born into This |
| 2022 | Arinze Ifeakandu | God's Children Are Little Broken Things |
| 2023 | SJ Sindu | The Goth House Experiment |
| 2024 | Ben Shattuck | The History of Sound |