Search All Winners

Name Sort descending Genre Year
Michael Cunningham Fiction 1995
Charles D'Ambrosio Fiction 2006
Michael Dahlie Fiction 2010
J. D. Daniels Nonfiction 2016
Lydia Davis Fiction 1988
Nathan Alan Davis Drama 2018
Tyree Daye Poetry 2019
Connie Deanovich Poetry 1997
Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams Fiction 2013
Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams Nonfiction 2013
Jaquira Díaz Nonfiction 2020
Hernan Diaz Fiction 2019
LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs Poetry 2016
Trudy Dittmar Nonfiction 2003
Matt Donovan Poetry 2010
Mark Doty Poetry 1994
Marcia Douglas Fiction 2023
Jennifer duBois Fiction 2013
Bruce Duffy Fiction 1988
Steven Dunn Fiction 2021
Anaïs Duplan Nonfiction 2022
Pam Durban Fiction 1987
Stuart Dybek Fiction 1985
Gerald Early Nonfiction 1988
Russell Edson Poetry 1989
Louis Edwards Fiction 1994
Kim Edwards Fiction 2002
Erik Ehn Drama 1997
Gretel Ehrlich Nonfiction 1987
Nancy Eimers Poetry 1998
Deborah Eisenberg Fiction 1987
Thomas Sayers Ellis Poetry 2005
Jeffrey Eugenides Fiction 1993
Roger Fanning Poetry 1992
Anderson Ferrell Fiction 1996

Selected winners

Vu Tran
2009
Las Vegas Noir

Six months ago, before all this, I drove into Las Vegas on a hot August twilight. My first time in the city. From the highway, I could see the Strip in the far distance, but also a lone dark cloud above it, flushed on a bed of light, glowing alien and purplish in the sky. My tired, pulpy brain at the time, I thought it was a UFO or something and nearly hit the truck ahead of me. Fifteen minutes later, at a gas station, I was told about the beam of light from atop that pyramid casino and how you can even see the beam from space, given no clouds were in the way. My disappointment surprised me.

Read More >
Cristina Garcia
1996
Dreaming in Cuban
A Novel

“I want to go where it’s cold,” Lourdes told her husband. They began to drive. “Colder,” she said as they passed the low salt marshes of Georgia, as if the word were a whip driving them north. “Colder,” she said through the withered fields of a Carolina winter. “Colder,” she said again in Washington, D.C., despite the cherry-blossom promises, despite the white stone monuments hoarding winter light. “This is cold enough,” she finally said when they reached New York.

Read More >
Alice McDermott
1987
That Night
A Novel

It’s hard not to think of Sheryl’s mother as cruel in all this: hard not to think of her as the boys did, as the jealous queen, the wicked witch. She was the one, after all, who had swept her daughter out of the state the very day her pregnancy was confirmed, who chose to torment her boyfriend with these coy games. It was she who made sure her daughter had no chance to explain, to tell him goodbye. No doubt Sheryl tried to get past her, tried to call him from the supermarket on the last day she worked, from her own house as she quickly gathered her things together, from the airport, even, when she’d told her mother she wanted to go to the bathroom before boarding the plane and instead headed for the phones.

Read More >
Trudy Dittmar
2003
Fauna and Flora, Earth and Sky
Brushes with Nature's Wisdom

In the shed the cow lies upside down mooing weakly. The men hang droplights from the ridgepole, and keeping her on her back, they spread her front and hind legs in opposite directions, tying them to opposite walls so she can’t kick. Kneeling over her swollen belly holding something that looks like a miniature fire extinguisher, the vet sprays her with antiseptic. The cow’s eyes roll, the whites showing, and she lets out faint moans, ever dwindling protests of pain and fear.

 

Used courtesy of the University of Iowa Press

Read More >
Yiyun Li
2006
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Stories

Several times a day Granny Lin bathes Old Tang: in the morning and before bedtime, and whenever he wets or dirties himself. The private bathroom is what Granny Lin likes best about her marriage. For all her life, she has used public bathrooms, fighting with other slippery bodies for the lukewarm water drizzling from the rusty showers. Now that she has a bathroom all to herself, she never misses any chance to use it.

Read More >
Wright Morris
1985
Plains Song
For Female Voices

Orion shot rabbits, but to tell the truth, it almost sickened Cora to clean and cook them. Stripped of its pelt, the taut body glistened. The small legs put her in mind of fingers. On her plate all she could think of was the pleading eyes. Somehow this did not trouble her about chickens, which she took the pains to behead herself, sometimes chasing the headless flapping bird around the chopping block. Orion plucked the bird for her, and the feathers were saved for a sleeping crib for Madge.

Read More >