More Awards for Our Authors

Congratulations to the following writers,
whose works have received notable distinctions:

Arthur Sze has won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry. The $10,000 prize was originally established in 1950 to celebrate the best writing in America. A number of Sze’s poems, as well as a recording of the author reading his work, is available in Narrative’s Library.

Jane Delury has received the 2019 American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction for her novel-in-stories The Balcony. The novel includes the work “Nothing of Consequence,” originally published in Narrative and selected for the O. Henry Prize Stories in 2011.

Tyree Daye has received a 2019 Whiting Award. The $50,000 awards are based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. Daye’s poetry can be found in our Library.

Sherman Alexie’s story “A Vacuum Is a Space Entirely Devoid of Matter” and     T. Coraghessan Boyle’s story “Warrior Jesus” received notable mentions in the Best American Short Stories, 2018.

Annie Proulx has won the 2018 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, recognizing an experienced writer whose body of work has “told us something new about the American experience.” Read Proulx’s story “Heart Songs” in our Library.

Mary Gaitskill, Rick Moody, and     Brenda Shaughnessy have won the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2018 Awards in Literature. The $10,000 awards are presented each year to honor exceptional accomplishment in literature. We have a number of works by Gaitskill, Moody, and Shaughnessy in our Library.

Lydia Conklin has been named a 2018 winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Each year the Rona Jaffe Foundation awards six $30,000 prizes to emerging women writers singled out for excellence and exceptional talent. Conklin’s short story “Bear with Me,” as well as a number of her cartoons, are available in our Library.

Alberto Álvaro Ríos has won the 2018 Shelley Award, presented annually to recognize individuals who have promoted public support for arts and culture. The award is the highest distinction Arizona offers in arts advocacy within the state. A number of Ríos’s poems can be found in our Library.

Jhumpa Lahiri has won the 2017 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Read Lahiri’s story “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” in our Library.

Rick Bass’s story collection For a Little While has won the 2017 Story Prize. Each year the prize honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Bass’s novella “Lease Hound,” which appeared in For a Little While, was published in our Stories of the Week: 2015–2016 issue.

Sharon Olds has won the Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award, with a prize of $100,000. Olds was deemed “an American master and a national treasure.” Read her poem “September 2001, New York City” in our Library.

Junot Díaz has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The Academy was founded in 1898 as an honor society of the country’s leading architects, artists, composers, and writers. Read an interview with Díaz in our Library.

Margaret Atwood has won the National Book Critics Circle’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. Named after the first president of the National Book Critics Circle, the award is given annually to a person or institution who has, over time, made significant contributions to book culture. Read an interview with Atwood in our Library.

Ama Codjoe has won a 2017 Writers’ Award from the Rona Jaffe Foundation. The 30,000 award supports women writers of exceptional talent, especially those in the early stages of their writing careers. Read Codjoe’s poetry in our Library.

Jean Valentine has won Yale’s 2017 Bollingen Prize for Poetry, with a cash award of $165,000. The prize honors the literary accomplishments of poets whose work continues to define modern American literature, and previous winners include Ezra Pound, E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, W. S. Merwin, and many others. A number of Valentine’s poems are available in our Library.

Paisley Rekdal has been named Utah’s new poet laureate. The post, established in 1997, is a governor-appointed advocate for literature and the arts throughout the state. A number of Rekdal’s poems are available in our Library.

Jane Lancellotti’s essay “If You Can’t Say Anything Nice, Write a One-Star Review” has been selected for the Pushcart Prize series, 2017. A number of Lancellotti’s works are available in our Library.