The $5,000 Narrative Prize is awarded annually for the best short story, novel excerpt, poem, one-act play, graphic story, or work of literary nonfiction published by a new or emerging writer in Narrative.
The deadline for entries for each year’s award is June 15.
The prize is announced in October and is given to the best work published each year in Narrative by a new or emerging writer, as judged by the magazine’s editors. In some years, the prize may be divided between winners, when more than one work merits the award. Entries selected for publication are eligible for the Narrative Prize, which is not a contest but an award.
Click here to submit your work. (See our Guidelines.)
Narrative Prize Winners
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Neha Chaudhary-Kamdar
Kartika
2023 Narrative Prize Winner
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Sarah Balakrishnan
Rouses Point
2022 Narrative Prize Winner
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Morgan Talty
The Gambler
2021 Narrative Prize Winner
I was sweating as I turned left into an unknown world. -
Tryphena L. Yeboah
If the Body Makes a Sound
2021 Narrative Prize Winner
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Gbenga Adesina
Across the Sea: A Sequence
2020 Narrative Prize Winner
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Brenden Willey
Things That Don’t Keep a Lightning Bug Alive
2019 Narrative Prize Winner
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Paisley Rekdal
Quiver and Other Poems
2018 Narrative Prize Winner
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Javier Zamora
Sonoran Song and Other Poems
2017 Narrative Prize Winner
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Sara Houghteling
The Thomas Cantor
2016 Narrative Prize Winner
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Ocean Vuong
No One Knows the Way to Heaven
2015 Narrative Prize Winner
2019 MacArthur Fellow -
Austin Smith
The Halverson Brothers
The snowy hill had been too much for the hearse.
2014 Narrative Prize Winner -
Kirstin Valdez Quade
Nemecia
2013 Narrative Prize Winner
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Nathan Poole
Stretch Out Your Hand
2012 Narrative Prize Winner
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Natalie Diaz
Downhill Triolets
2012 Narrative Prize Winner
2021 Pulitzer Prize -
Kevin A. González
Christmas Eve
2011 Narrative Prize Winner
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Anthony Marra
Chechnya
2010 Narrative Prize Winner
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Maud Newton
When the Flock Changed
2009 Narrative Prize Winner
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Alexi Zentner
Trapline
2008 Narrative Prize Winner
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Michael Dickman
Returning to Church
2008 Narrative Prize Winner
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Alma García
Letter to El Mateo
2007 Narrative Prize Winner
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Saidiya Hartman
A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route
2007 Narrative Prize Winner
This is the afterlife of slavery. I, too, am the afterlife of slavery. -
Mermer Blakeslee
Leenie
2006 Narrative Prize Winner
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Ned Parker
On to Baghdad
2006 Narrative Prize Winner
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Pia Z. Ehrhardt
Famous Fathers
2005 Narrative Prize Winner
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Min Jin Lee
Axis of Happiness
2004 Narrative Prize Winner