2020 Nominations
Each year we are privileged to be able to nominate work for anthologies and awards including Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers (Best Debut Short Stories), and the Pushcart Prize. Additionally, we proudly send all eligible work for consideration in the Best American series, including The Best American Essays, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and The Best American Short Stories, and for consideration in The O. Henry Prize Stories.
For the 2020 Best of the Net
This project continues to promote the diverse and growing collection of voices who are publishing their work online. This anthology serves to bring greater respect to an innovative and continually expanding digital world in the same medium in which the work was originally published.
“The Study and Practice of Astral Projection” by Lesley Bannatyne
“Assassin, Alchemist” by Robert Ren
For the 2022 Pushcart Prize
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.
Creative Nonfiction:
“Losing Composure” by A.D. Carr
“Into that dark permanence of ancient forms” by Aileen Hunt
Fiction:
“On the Universal Rights of Ducks and Girls” by Tara Campbell
“Ariel” by Jinwoo Chong
“The Caregiver” by Bernard Grant
“Body Language” by Tian Yi
Best Microfiction 2021 will be published by Pelekinesis in the summer of 2021. 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 Amber Sparks serve as final judge.
“Forest Elegy” by Despy Boutris
“Micro Home” by Jonathan Cardew
“What They Didn’t Teach Us” by Luke Whisnant
For The Best Small Fictions 2021
The Best Small Fictions is the first ever contemporary anthology solely dedicated to anthologizing the best internationally published short hybrid fiction in a given calendar year. Now in its sixth year of existence, Best Small Fictions features the best micro fiction, flash fiction, haibun stories and prose poetry from around the world.
Founded by Tara L. Masih, Best Small Fictions is now steered 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), two-time Pushcart Prize winner Aimee Bender (2018) and, most recently, PEN/Faulkner nominee Rilla Askew (2019).
“What You Know” by Heather Aronson
“It’s Time to Push” by Lori Sambol Brody
“A Girl Climbs a Tree” by Ruth Joffre
“Epilogue” by Carol M. Quinn
“Take Me to Your Leader” by Amy Stuber
Best of luck to all our nominated contributors and to all contributors whose work we’ve sent for consideration in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and The Best American Short Stories, and that we will send for consideration in The Best American Essays and The O. Henry Prize Stories.