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

Sherwin Bitsui
2006
Shapeshift
Poems

Turn signals blink through ice in the skin.

Snake dreams uncoil,

                        burrow into the spine of books.

Night spills from cracked eggs.

Thin hands vein oars in a canyon bed.

We follow deer tracks back to the insertion of her tongue.

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Jody Gladding
1997
Stone Crop
Poems

The shambles of the gods stretches for miles,

a salvage yard where the smell of hot chrome rises,

where finned bodies lie beached and rusting,

and their names recall great chiefs

and tribes and the empowering animals.

 

Thunderbird, Winnebago, Mustang, Pontiac –

you must say these names out loud. You must

strip the radios in which the myths survive.

Repeat: Wi-Yuh returns to abolish the custom of killing

the beasts for their names. Leave the road maps

on the dashboards. Learn the song of spawning fish.

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Brontez Purnell
2018
Since I Laid My Burden Down
A Novel

The congregation began to rustle in preparation for Sister Pearl. Sister Pearl had been the choir headmistress for forever and a day. She claimed many times that she lost her voice singing for the devil. Sometime in her twenties she decided she wanted to sing the dirty blues, like Aretha Franklin. She quit the church and started singing along the Chitlin Circuit in Chattanooga, Nashville, Louisville, and on up to Chicago. One day, she said, the Lord took her voice away, and that’s when she returned to church.

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Anne Washburn
2015
The Internationalist
A Play

SARA

I don't think $20 is much for a bribe.

 

LOWELL

Isn't it? American? I was hoping it was a whole hell of a lot.

 

SARA

Maybe. Guys who work in airports make a lot of funny money different ways.

 

LOWELL

Oh but, oh, well. Yeah. Fuck. Well it was my first bribe.

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Hansol Jung
2018
Wild Goose Dreams
A Play

​​

CHORUS

-   Search: Husband affair asset division.

-   Askkorealaw dot com Q and A

- Q. My dirty husband is sexing with our daughter’s tutor. Will I get rich if I divorce him or should I make him suffer?

-   A. Make him suffer.

 

MINSUNG

Although, my wife and daughter live in America, I don’t think they’d know if I lit myself on fire,

how will they know that I’m having an affair?

That was a joke.

They call us the goose fathers, I could look that up for you.

 

CHORUS

-   Search: Goose father origin

-   Wikipedia Korea

 

MINSUNG

Aha.

 

CHORUS

-   The goose father is a Korean man who works in Korea while his wife and children stay in an English-speaking country for the sake of the children’s education. / The term is

 

MINSUNG

The term is inspired by the fact that geese migrate, just as the goose dad must travel a great distance to see his family.

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Ladan Osman
2021
Exiles of Eden

A friend asks, “What are you waiting for?

The straw that breaks the camel’s back?”

Maybe I am the straw.

Maybe I am hay. I made a list of rhyming words:

Bray, flay, array.

They all seemed to relate to farms, decaying things,

gray days, dismay.

I am recently reckless about making a display

of my unhappiness. Perhaps you may survey it.

Perhaps I may stray from it, go to the wrong home

by accident and say, “Oh! Here already?”

You know I’m fraying and just watch it.

You don’t even try to braid me together.

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