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
Don Mee Choi Poetry 2011
Yoon Choi Fiction 2024
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

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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Lewis Robinson
2003
Officer Friendly and Other Stories

“Now, because it’s his birthday and he wasn’t supposed to make it this far, he asked that we throw him a bash, like the old Augusta blowouts, and he asked that at midnight we shoot him dead.”

 

I stared at him. He didn’t waver.

 

“We figure you’re the best guy to do it,” he said, slapping a hand on my shoulder.

 

“I’ve never even shot a gun,” I said.

 

He pulled up my shirt and took the gun from the back of my pants. “It’s pretty basic. Point and pull. You’ve seen the movies.” He aimed the pistol at the portrait of the old man, said “Bang” and faked the recoil, then blew imaginary smoke from the barrel.

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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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Stephanie Powell Watts
2013
We Are Taking Only What We Need
Stories

Daddy shook the box, kicked it, mumbled under his breath something that sounded like it had teeth. He came from around the house with a shovel and dragged it behind him, along with the box, to the woods. He would bury my dog, I thought.

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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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Harriet Ritvo
1990
The Animal Estate
The English and Other Creatures in Victorian England

When in 1679 a London woman swung at Tyburn for bestiality, her canine partner in crime suffered the same punishment on the same grounds. King James I ordered a bear that had killed a child to be baited to death, and rural shepherds frequently hanged dogs caught worrying their flocks. The Merchant of Venice included a reference to “a wolf, hanged for human slaughter” sufficiently cursory to suggest that Shakespeare’s audience recognized animals as appropriate participants in formal judicial proceedings.

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