2020/21 Winner & Finalists
Winner: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Deesha Philyaw's writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, McSweeney's, the Rumpus, Brevity, Apogee Journal, Barrelhouse, Baltimore Review, Cheat River Review, Electric Literature, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, she currently lives in Pittsburgh with her daughters. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was a finalist for The National Book Awards and is a Los Angeles Times Book Awards finalist for first fiction. It is also the first book to win both The Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Finalist: Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum the author of two novels, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tin House, The Best American Short Stories, and the O. Henry Prize Stories. The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Fellowship, she was named one of "20 Under 40" fiction writers by The New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles.
Finalist: The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
Danielle Evans is the author of the story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, winner of the PEN America PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Paterson Prize, and a National Book Foundation "5 under 35" selection. Her stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories. She teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
The Story Prize Spotlight Award: Inheritors by Asako Serizawa
We’re pleased to announce the ninth winner of The Story Prize Spotlight Award, Inheritors by Asako Serizawa (Doubleday), a collection of thirteen formally inventive, beautifully written, and sometimes heartbreaking stories about five generations of a family in Japan, elsewhere in Asia, and in the U.S.
Beyond the three finalists The Story Prize announces each January, we honor an additional short story collection of exceptional merit with The Story Prize Spotlight Award. Winners can be promising works by first-time authors, collections in alternative formats, or works that demonstrate an unusual perspective on the writer's craft. The award comes with a prize of $1,000.
The 2020/21 Story Prize Judges
Writer and Critic Ismail Muhammad
Independent Bookseller Margot Sage-EL
Author Karen Shepard