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 by a new or emerging writer. All works published in the magazine each year are considered for the prize. During each year, previously unpublished works may be submitted for consideration for the Narrative Prize.
The deadline for entries for each year’s award is June 15. Works submitted after June 15 are considered for the following year’s prize.
The prize is announced in October and is given to the best work published 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. The Narrative Prize is not a contest but an award.
Click here to submit your work. (See our Guidelines.)
Narrative Prize Winners
-
Madeleine Cravens
October Phone Call and Other Poems
2024 Narrative Prize Winner
My loneliness is not less because I understand it more. -
Neha Chaudhary-Kamdar
Kartika
2023 Narrative Prize Winner
It was the day I told a lie that would embarrass me for years to come. -
Sarah Balakrishnan
Rouses Point
2022 Narrative Prize Winner
It was as if the stranger in the train carriage had taken out a knife. -
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
What kind of woman is terrified by her own power? -
Gbenga Adesina
Across the Sea: A Sequence
2020 Narrative Prize Winner
Your prayer is to the fitful sleep of the dead. -
Brenden Willey
Things That Don’t Keep a Lightning Bug Alive
2019 Narrative Prize Winner
I said I am ready because I was and I wasn’t but wanted to be. -
Paisley Rekdal
Quiver and Other Poems
2018 Narrative Prize Winner
Is this what memory is: static, unchangeable mind we step into? -
Javier Zamora
Sonoran Song and Other Poems
2017 Narrative Prize Winner
We were lost and didn’t know which star was north what was east west. -
Sara Houghteling
The Thomas Cantor
2016 Narrative Prize Winner
The chords cluster and the melody seems to trip and tangle. -
Ocean Vuong
No One Knows the Way to Heaven
2015 Narrative Prize Winner
Why are my hands always empty when touching those I love? -
Austin Smith
The Halverson Brothers
2014 Narrative Prize Winner
We’ve tried, but it seems it is in the stars for us to hate each other. -
Kirstin Valdez Quade
Nemecia
2013 Narrative Prize Winner
I was afraid of Nemecia because I knew her greatest secret. -
Nathan Poole
Stretch Out Your Hand
2012 Narrative Prize Winner
My sister’s fever wasn’t gone at all, but dazzling—suspended over us. -
Natalie Diaz
Downhill Triolets
2012 Narrative Prize Winner
Ring at 2 a.m. means meth’s got my brother in the slammer again. -
Kevin A. González
Christmas Eve
2011 Narrative Prize Winner
The first guy who buys him a drink becomes his new son. -
Anthony Marra
Chechnya
2010 Narrative Prize Winner
Sonja slapped her sister. How could she shed tears for the past? -
Maud Newton
When the Flock Changed
2009 Narrative Prize Winner
My mother was a preacher until the cops shut her down. -
Alexi Zentner
Trapline
2008 Narrative Prize Winner
It was so dark he could barely make out the shape of his own body. -
Michael Dickman
Returning to Church
2008 Narrative Prize Winner
The light through the stained-glass window was snow, not Grace. -
Alma García
Letter to El Mateo
2007 Narrative Prize Winner
I don’t talk you because I am embarrass, I hear ugly in my mouth. -
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
She called her a city girl like she was someone strange. -
Ned Parker
On to Baghdad
2006 Narrative Prize Winner
You trembled at the thought of death in a biological attack. -
Pia Z. Ehrhardt
Famous Fathers
2005 Narrative Prize Winner
“Quit sucking up to him. He’s not famous at home.” -
Min Jin Lee
Axis of Happiness
2004 Narrative Prize Winner
I shoved the hefty Bible into the secret space I’d made for it.