Search All Winners

Name Sort descending Genre Year
Jesse McCarthy Nonfiction 2022
Shane McCrae Poetry 2011
Tarell Alvin McCraney Drama 2007
Alice McDermott Fiction 1987
Reginald McKnight Fiction 1995
John McManus Fiction 2000
James McMichael Poetry 1995
Scott McPherson Drama 1991
Jane Mead Poetry 1992
Suketu Mehta Fiction 1997
Suketu Mehta Nonfiction 1997
Morgan Meis Nonfiction 2013
Ellen Meloy Nonfiction 1997
Michael Meyer Nonfiction 2009
Meg Miroshnik Drama 2012
Albert Mobilio Fiction 2000
Albert Mobilio Poetry 2000
Gothataone Moeng Fiction 2024
Lara Mimosa Montes Fiction 2026
C.E. Morgan Fiction 2013
Wright Morris Fiction 1985
Wright Morris Nonfiction 1985
Sylvia Moss Poetry 1988
Thylias Moss Poetry 1991
Brighde Mullins Drama 2001
Nami Mun Fiction 2009
Manuel Muñoz Fiction 2008
Yannick Murphy Fiction 1990
Yxta Maya Murray Fiction 1999
Lawrence Naumoff Fiction 1990
Nana Nkweti Fiction 2022
Howard Norman Fiction 1985
Bruce Norris Drama 2006
Josip Novakovich Nonfiction 1997
Josip Novakovich Fiction 1997

Selected winners

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.

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Roger Reeves
2015
King Me
Poems

The deaf hear only in their dreams. I am sure

I can hear nothing. My how the mountain leaps

towards the sea and the little village below.

Who sang for the white plate my father tossed

at my sister’s shadow? What funeral is held

for a broken compass? When cutting onions,

leave a candle lit somewhere near an old man

holding his wife in a napkin. In the torn light of evening,

there is enough treason for everybody. Excuse me,

I should say something about the beauty of cranes.

Once in a sycamore I tossed a brick at a boy’s head.

It opened like the sea. I think I saw a crane.

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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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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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Mark Cox
1987
Barbells of the Gods
Poems

Child or woman. Memory or need. Today, again, I can see you

in her eyes, today her eyes again pursue the ground, look

for some sign, some path to follow away from her route.

Her sweatshirt is zipped to the throat and I am realizing that

we are both then, somehow ashamed of what has suddenly happened

between us. And I’m slowing down a little, as if to let

the spring sun catch up to these hands on the steering wheel,

to these hands that will not ever stop needing breasts to

make them hands, as if to uncover my mouth

and yell across the lawns to her.

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Don Mee Choi
2011
The Morning News is Exciting
Poems

I am a cowry girl, a marine biologist to be exact. The 8-hour move-

ment started in the United States in 1884. Feeling more and more.

Gave birth. Took up the question. 8 hours shall be the norm. Marx:

Slavery disfigured a part of the republic. Labor with a white skin

cannot emancipate itself where labor with a black skin is branded.

The time named. Endorse the same. Half of the same. More pro-

foundly. Therefore be considered a synonym.

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