Search all Winners

Name Sort descending	Genre	Year
Rita Bullwinkel	Fiction	2022
Michael Burkard	Poetry	1988
Michael Byers	Fiction	1998
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum	Fiction	2005
Ryan Call	Fiction	2011
Sheila Callaghan	Drama	2007
Kayleb Rae Candrilli	Poetry	2019
Francisco Cantú	Nonfiction	2017
Anthony Carelli	Poetry	2015
Ina Cariño	Poetry	2022
Hayden Carruth	Poetry	1986
Emily Carter	Fiction	2001
Elaine Castillo	Fiction	2026
Joan Chase	Fiction	1987
Alexander Chee	Fiction	2003
Dan Chiasson	Poetry	2004
Yoon Choi	Fiction	2024
Don Mee Choi	Poetry	2011
Shayok Misha Chowdhury	Drama	2024
Mia Chung	Drama	2023
Paul Clemens	Nonfiction	2011
Ama Codjoe	Poetry	2023
Anthony Cody	Poetry	2022
Robert Cohen	Fiction	2000
Christopher Cokinos	Nonfiction	2003
Clarence Coo	Drama	2017
Jordan E. Cooper	Drama	2021
Amanda Coplin	Fiction	2013
Leopoldine Core	Fiction	2015
Eduardo C. Corral	Poetry	2011
Elwin Cotman	Fiction	2025
Patrick Cottrell	Fiction	2018
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig	Drama	2024
Mark Cox	Poetry	1987
Douglas Crase	Poetry	1985

Selected winners

Carvell Wallace

2026

Another Word for Love

Once, I read a story—or maybe I imagined a
story—of two children ages eight and twelve
discovering the dead body of the grandmother
who was taking care of them. The older child,
a girl, took responsibility then. Feeding her
younger brother, covering the body, keeping
life going, until the smell got too much, and
they asked a neighbor for help. They were, of
course, rescued. But I often wonder what they
were rescued from. It is good, of course, if
they were brought into a place of safety,
steady reliable meals, home, and hopefully
love and care. But somewhere in me the feeling
of hurtling alone is itself the feeling of
home, a human truth the size of the universe,
the size of my mother and me in a motel with
no future to be certain of. I would never want
that for myself or for my children. I would
never want that for anyone. And yet sometimes,
I want it for myself.

Excerpts from ANOTHER WORD FOR LOVE: A MEMOIR by Carvell Wallace. Copyright © 2024 by Carvell Wallace. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All Rights Reserved.

Major Jackson

2003

Leaving Saturn

Poems

In that darkness,

Speakers rose like

Housing projects,

Moonlight diamonded

Mesh-wire panes.

What was it that bloomed

Around his curled

Body when the lights

Came up, fluorescent,

Vacant, garish?

The gym throbbed

With beats & rage

And his eyes darted

Like a man nailed

To a burning crucifix.

Benjamin Percy

2008

The Wilding

A Novel

“You see my grandson over there.” Justin’s father humps his chin in Graham’s direction without taking his eyes off Seth. “You don’t want him to see what the inside of your skull looks like, do you?”

“You’d never do that,” Seth says. “I could walk right up to that rifle and stick my finger in it and you’d never do a thing.”

“Come on and try.”

“You’re so full of it.”

Then his father swings the barrel left and fires. The crack of the gunshot is followed by the chime of glass shattering, falling from the red pickup, its left headlight destroyed.

For a moment Seth stares at his truck. “You’ll fucking pay for that,” he says.