2018 Nominations
The CRAFT team of readers and editors is so delighted to share our 2018 nominations with you!
For the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers: “Watershed” by Jack Noland
The PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers recognizes twelve emerging fiction writers each year for their debut short story published in a literary magazine or cultural website last year and aims to support the launch of their careers as fiction writers. Each of the twelve winning writers receives a cash prize of $2,000 and the independent book publisher Catapult will publish the twelve winning stories in an annual anthology entitled The PEN America Best Debut Short Stories, which will acknowledge the literary magazines and websites where the stories were originally published.
For the Best Microfiction 2019 anthology: “Fire” by Brenda Peynado
Best Microfiction 2019 will be published by Pelekinesis in the spring of 2019. The Best Microfiction anthology series considers stories of only 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology will have the well-known novelist and short story writer Dan Chaon serve as final judge.
UPDATE: “Fire” has been selected to appear in the anthology! Congrats to Brenda!
For the 2020 Pushcart Prize:
“Brothers” by BD Feil
“A Girl Like You” by Beth Hahn
“The Whites” by Dustin M. Hoffman
“A Last-Minute Addendum” by Jess E. Jelsma
“Mannequin” by Melissa Ragsly
“Kuchizi” by Lucas Schaefer
The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America.
Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in our annual collections. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series. Every volume contains an index of past selections, plus lists of outstanding presses with addresses.
The Pushcart Prize has been a labor of love and independent spirits since its founding. It is one of the last surviving literary co-ops from the 60’s and 70’s.
For The Best Small Fictions 2019:
“Eating Strawberries with Strangers” by Pia Ghosh-Roy
“Vacations” by Megan Giddings
“The Deepest Part of the Lake” by John Haggerty
“A Little Like Hope” by Jason Jackson
“My Debt Collector” by Brenda Peynado
The Best Small Fictions is the first ever contemporary anthology solely dedicated to anthologizing the best short hybrid fiction published in a given calendar year.
Best Small Fictions features micro fiction, flash fiction, haibun stories and prose poetry. Founded by Tara L. Masih, Best Small Fictions is now helmed by series editor Nathan Leslie. Guest editors have included Pulitzer Prize-winning Robert Olen Butler (2015), PEN/Malamud Award winner Stuart Dybek (2016), Pen/Malamud Award winner Amy Hempel (2017) and two-time Pushcart Prize winner Aimee Bender (2018).
UPDATE: Brenda Peynado’s microfiction, “Fire,” has been selected to appear in the anthology!