Search All Winners

Name Sort descending Genre Year
Raymond Abbott Fiction 1985
Aria Aber Poetry 2020
André Aciman Nonfiction 1995
David Adjmi Drama 2010
Ellen Akins Fiction 1989
Daniel Alarcón Fiction 2004
Jeffery Renard Allen Fiction 2002
Jeffery Renard Allen Poetry 2002
Mindy Aloff Nonfiction 1987
Diannely Antigua Poetry 2020
Will Arbery Drama 2020
Elizabeth Arnold Poetry 2002
John Ash Poetry 1986
Negar Azimi Nonfiction 2026
Kirsten Bakis Fiction 2004
Catherine Barnett Poetry 2004
Clare Barron Drama 2017
Elif Batuman Nonfiction 2010
Jen Beagin Fiction 2017
Jo Ann Beard Nonfiction 1997
Joshua Bennett Poetry 2021
Mischa Berlinski Fiction 2008
Ciaran Berry Poetry 2012
Aaliyah Bilal Fiction 2024
Liza Birkenmeier Drama 2025
Sherwin Bitsui Poetry 2006
Scott Blackwood Fiction 2011
Brian Blanchfield Nonfiction 2016
Tommye Blount Poetry 2023
Judy Blunt Nonfiction 2001
Anne Boyer Poetry 2018
Claire Boyles Fiction 2022
Courtney A. Brkic Fiction 2003
Joel Brouwer Poetry 2001
Jericho Brown Poetry 2009

Selected winners

Lara Mimosa Montes
2026
The Time of the Novel

When I put in my notice at the bookstore, the manager—a heavy-set woman in her mid-forties who often spoke in monosyllabic bursts—curtly replied, “We’re sorry to see you go.” Whether my employer regretted her inability to create a work environment that might have fostered my personal growth and tempted me to reconsider my options was beyond the scope of my then-nascent narrative powers, but I did not elaborate, as I did not wish to draw out the details surrounding my sudden departure. Outwardly, I feigned regret, but inside, I rejoiced: I was free, I thought, free to take leave of my post and bid my old, monotonous life among books and bookish people goodbye! A more urgent position awaited me in the form of a transparent eye. I shook the manager’s hand, and before the day was done, I updated my email account preferences so that in one week’s time, any work-related queries would receive the following automated response:

HELLO: I AM CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE. I’M CHASING A DREAM CALLED PROSE.

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Antoinette Nwandu
2018
Pass Over
A Play

                    MOSES

yo ass gon rise up to yo full potential too

gon git up off dis block

man

you remember

dat sunday school

ol reverend Missus be like

 

                    (as reverend missus)

sed uh

do you wanna cross dat river now chillun

sed uh

do you wanna cross dat river now chillum

 

                    KITCH

                    (gasping)

pass ovuh

 

                    MOSES

yeah nigga damn

i feel like we cud do dis shit

you feel me

git up off dis block

 

                    KITCH

amen!

 

                    MOSES

be all we cud be

 

                    KITCH

yes lawd!

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Roger Reeves
2015
King Me
Poems

The deaf hear only in their dreams. I am sure

I can hear nothing. My how the mountain leaps

towards the sea and the little village below.

Who sang for the white plate my father tossed

at my sister’s shadow? What funeral is held

for a broken compass? When cutting onions,

leave a candle lit somewhere near an old man

holding his wife in a napkin. In the torn light of evening,

there is enough treason for everybody. Excuse me,

I should say something about the beauty of cranes.

Once in a sycamore I tossed a brick at a boy’s head.

It opened like the sea. I think I saw a crane.

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Frank Stewart
1986
Flying the Red Eye
Poems

Circling slow and dripping like a fat June bug in the rain,

turbos throbbing in the labored

dark over Chicago, the Electra turned, one wing

pivoted up, like an old dog tilted on three legs,

smelling dank, an old heaviness in him, as though

he were about to tumble over toward those glorious,

snowy lights below. There might have been

freezing sleet as well. In any case, I know

I laughed into a glass half filled with bourbon,

glanced again at the two feathered props

out the window, their cowlings charred and smoky.

But freed all at once from months of killing depression,

elated strangely, almost uplifted.

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Allison Glock
2004
Beauty Before Comfort
The Story of an American Original

Aneita Jean never liked the men at the Klan rallies. It scared her not to see their faces. It made her uncomfortable that they all seemed to know her daddy, and that he knew them by their raspy voices. She would watch them circling around on the hill, their crosses aflame, and snuggle closer to her father’s chest.

 

“I want to leave, daddy,” she’d say softly, fearful they might overhear and come running back, robes flapping behind like hateful phantoms.

 

“Hush up, Jeannie.”

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Aria Aber
2020
Hard Damage

To miss my life in Kabul is to tongue 
pears laced with needles. I had no life
in Kabul. How, then, can I trust my mind’s long corridor,
its longing for before? I have a faint depression
polluting my heart, sings the lake. That there is music 
in everything if you tune into it
devastates me. Even trauma sounds like Traum, 
the German word for dream. 

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