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

Elaine Castillo
2026
Moderation, A Novel

Girlie was, by every conceivable metric, one
of the very best. All the chaff, long ago
burned up by unquenchable fire: the ones who
had hourly panic attacks, the ones who took
up drinking; the ones who fucked in the
stairwells during break time, the ones who
started bringing handguns to the office, the
ones who started believing the Holocaust had
never happened, or that 9/11 was an inside
job, or that no one had ever been to the
moon at all, or that every presidential
candidate was picked by a cosmic society of
devils who communicated across
interplanetary channels; the ones who took
the work home, the ones who never came back
the same, or never came back at all. The
floor was now averaging only three or four
suicide attempts a year, down from one or
two a month. The ones who remained, like
her, were the wheat: the exemplars, tested
paladins, the ones who didn’t throw up in
the hallway and leave the vomit there.
They’d been, to continue speaking of it
biblically, separated. 

From MODERATION by Elaine Castillo, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.

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Tony Kushner
1990
A Bright Room Called Day
A Play

AGNES:

I feel at home.

My friends like it here,

better that their own apartments.

I’m not a fool.

I know that what’s coming

will be bad,

but not unlivable,

and not eternally,

and when it’s over, I will have clung to the least last thing,

which is to say, my lease.

And you have to admit, it’s a terrific apartment.

I could never find anything like it if I moved out now.

You would not believe

how low the rent is.

 

(End of scene.)

 

Slide: JANUARY 30, 1933.

Slide: PRESIDENT HINDENBURG

Slide: APPPOINTS ADOLF HITLER

Slide: CHANCELLOR OF THE GERMAN REICH.

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Ciaran Berry
2012
The Sphere of Birds
Poems

Things weather fast here, soon bird will be bone,

brittle and white, dead twig snapped underfoot

where the sky alters in seconds, shine to shower,

and harsher truths hit home hour after hour –

the sundew snagging flies, settling to eat,

a fat gull’s fractured keen that cuts through stone.

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Tyree Daye
2019
River Hymns

1. Boy, don’t let a shadow in you, I never want to see the devil in your eyes, a traceable line of your daddy’s.

2. If you dream about fish or a river, somebody’s pregnant, we need the water more than it needs us.

3. Dream about snakes, you haven’t been living right, wash your hands of it.

4. They’re shooting boys who look like you. You know my number, use it, keep all your blood.

5. Stay

6. Alive.

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Liza Birkenmeier
2025
Grief Hotel
A Play

WINN – How’s Melba?

EM – She told me she could see the afterlife.

WINN – What’s it like?

EM – Or my afterlife. She said that I would be a few other things when I die, that my cells have tiny souls so when I am a piece of cheese and a pigeon, I will still be me, but my consciousness will be broken down into smaller bits.

WINN – Does that feel happy to you?

EM – I don’t care. I’ll be like a deconstructed sandwich. / Or baby.

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Manuel Muñoz
2008
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
Stories

“He has something of mine,” the man said.

 

With that, she turned to look at him. “Who are you?” she finally demanded. “Sergio called me to come pick him up, not you.”

 

“You don’t know me?” His voice pitched higher, edging toward frustration, maybe anger. “You don’t know who I am?”

 

“No,” she finally said. “I don’t.”

 

“He’s got my heart,” the man said, melodramatically holding his hands across his chest, but he sneered a bit when he said it. “He’s got a lot of things I want back.”

 

Copyright © 2006 by Manuel Muñoz. By permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York, NY and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. All rights reserved.  The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express permission is prohibited.

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