Search All Winners

Name Sort descending Genre Year
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
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
Justin Cronin Fiction 2002
Stanley Crouch Nonfiction 1991

Selected winners

Nathan Alan Davis
2018
Nat Turner in Jerusalem
A Play

NAT TURNER

What do you mean by your copyright?

The right to copy?

 

THOMAS R. GRAY

Yes, well, the right to publish and distribute, which involves copying necessarily.

 

NAT

And who can grant such a right?

 

THOMAS

The copyright office, naturally.

 

NAT

...

 

THOMAS

It protects the rights of the man who has done the work.

 

NAT

And is God not a sufficient witness of our works?

 

THOMAS

Uh,

No.

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Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
2024
Snow in Midsummer
A Play

DOU YI

My hands were packed in dry ice

Flown across the Pacific and

Stitched onto a man who lost his overseas.

My palms open doors to

Rooms my feet haven't walked through and

Caress a woman my eyes will never see.

It doesn't snow there but my

Nails ache when they touch ice and

Scratch strange characters onto that

Soldier's skin while he's sleeping.

His doctors call it post-traumatic stress but

He knows they're words from a

Language his tongue never learned

Justice. 

Justice. 

Justice

Across the East Sea a yam farmer

Uses my corneas to see.

She dreams of snow but thinks

It's ashes from a childhood fire bombing.

On the far side of the Atlantic my stomach digests

Food that never passed through my lips

Food my teeth didn't chew

Food my tongue hasn't tasted

Food that could have made this spirit stronger

And act sooner if someone offered it to Dou Yi.

But my heart--

My heart beats in this town,

Pumping blood through a man

Loved by the son of an official,

A son who moved Heaven and Earth for

His Happiness.

His Future.

His New Harmony.

These offerings have given me strength

I feel my spirit reviving!

Justice. 

Justice. 

Justice.

Justice and burial for the widow Dou Yi

Justice.

Justice.

Justice.

But how can you bury a woman whose butchered body's still living?

Justice. 

Justice.

That is my heart. It should beat inside me.

 

(Dou Yi thrusts her hand into Rocket's chest and retrieves her heart.)

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Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
2019
Beast Meridian

That I commune with the dead as I oil your feet. My house at the throat of the river, the door to this world, I wait for you. That I ask of the spirit and receive the knowledges: yerbabuena, vela de virgen, baño de alhucema. Cut the joint at the hoof & fatten the soup. Accept this offering, thank the plant. That I love you with the knowledge of our ways lost to violence. That you will call me up from the silt in your bones.

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Kirsten Bakis
2004
Lives of the Monster Dogs
A Novel

The photo showed a dog, standing on its hind legs, being helped from the door of a helicopter by a serious-looking man in a down vest. The dog seemed to stand about the same height as the man, and looked like a Malamute. The strange thing about it, besides its larger-than-average size, was the fact that it was wearing a dark-colored jacket which looked like part of an old-fashioned military uniform, and a pair of spectacles, and that it appeared to have hands instead of front paws. In one of those gloved hands it held a cane, which was pointed at an awkward angle, probably because of the way the man was holding on to that foreleg just above the elbow. The other hand gripped the side of the helicopter doorway. The expression on the animal’s face was one of terror. Its lips were slightly parted, its ears were pointing straight backward, and its eyes were wide.

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David Adjmi
2010
Stunning
A Play

CLAUDINE: (covers her face, emotionally exhausted) I’m old.

 

LILY: (I feel old.)

 

CLAUDINE: Bonnie has four kids //

 

SHELLY: (Three) //

 

CLAUDINE: and she’s two years younger than me I’m gonna be twenny.

 

LILY: If I met someone you will.

 

CLAUDINE: But you’re pretty.

 

LILY: You’re stunning!

 

CLAUDINE: I’M FAT!

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Sofi Thanhauser
2025
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing

Today, it is no longer cheaper to make your own clothes than to buy them. A task that once fell within the province of the ordinary household is now an esoteric hobby, requiring skills out of reach to most ordinary Americans. It can even be cost prohibitive, since to buy the cloth to make a shirt will often cost more than the price of a new shirt. A curious reversal.

Ralph Tharpe, the former design engineer at Cone Mills in North Carolina, and the man responsible for making denim for Levi’s 501s during the 1970s, put the question to me this way: “Why is it that from 1960 to today the price of a Ford truck has increased ten times over and the price of a pair of dungarees has stayed the same?” This question becomes even more puzzling when one considers that many mass-manufacturing processes have been automated since the 1960s but sewing is not one of them. The process one follows to sew a garment has not changed materially since the advent of the sewing machine. Fabric is a fussy and unpredictable material, unlike sheet metal, that still requires the subtle manipulation of tension that can only be done by a real human hand.

How then, did this happen?

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