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	Fiction	1997
Josip Novakovich	Nonfiction	1997

Selected winners

Kaitlyn Greenidge

2017

We Love You, Charlie Freeman

A Novel

My mother had good hair, a term she would never use herself because, she said, it was so hurtful she couldn’t possibly believe it. But my mother’s hair was undeniably long and thick, a mass of loose curls that Callie and I did not inherit and that she was determined to cut off before we began our new life.

She tried to talk both of us into joining her, but only Callie took the bait. My mother got her with the promise of hair made so easy and simple, you could run your fingers through it. When it was all over, Callie was left with an outgrowth of stiff, sodden curls that clung in limp clusters to her forehead and the nape of her neck and made the back of her head smell like burning and sugar.

Liza Birkenmeier

2025

Grief Hotel

A Play

WINN – How’s Melba?

EM – She told me she could see the afterlife.

WINN – What’s it like?

EM – Or my afterlife. She said that I would be a few other things when I die, that my cells have tiny souls so when I am a piece of cheese and a pigeon, I will still be me, but my consciousness will be broken down into smaller bits.

WINN – Does that feel happy to you?

EM – I don’t care. I’ll be like a deconstructed sandwich. / Or baby.

Hansol Jung

2018

Wild Goose Dreams

A Play

CHORUS

- Search: Husband affair asset division.

- Askkorealaw dot com Q and A

- Q. My dirty husband is sexing with our daughter’s tutor. Will I get rich if I divorce him or should I make him suffer?

- A. Make him suffer.

MINSUNG

Although, my wife and daughter live in America, I don’t think they’d know if I lit myself on fire,

how will they know that I’m having an affair?

That was a joke.

They call us the goose fathers, I could look that up for you.

CHORUS

- Search: Goose father origin

- Wikipedia Korea

MINSUNG

Aha.

CHORUS

- The goose father is a Korean man who works in Korea while his wife and children stay in an English-speaking country for the sake of the children’s education. / The term is

MINSUNG

The term is inspired by the fact that geese migrate, just as the goose dad must travel a great distance to see his family.

Leopoldine Core

2015

When Watched

Stories

She remembers sensing—almost smelling—that he wanted to kill her. Or that for a split second the thought was spreading itself in his mind. She remembers the terrible little theater of his eyes, which she had always thought to be blue. But looking at them in the afternoon glare, she saw that they weren’t even a little bit blue. They were grey.

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.