2021 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.
Best of the Net
The Best of the Netis an awards-based anthology designed to grant a platform to a diverse and growing collection of writers and publishers who are building an online literary landscape that seeks to break free of traditional publishing. This space has been created to bring greater respect to the continually expanding world of exceptional digital publishing.
Creative Nonfiction:
“Dois Irmãos” by Hannah Storm
“Pasaporte F076717” by Bessie Flores Zaldívar
Fiction:
“jump!” by Michelle Go-un Lee
“This Dreary Exile of Our Earthly Home” by Eliana Ramage
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:
“Father/Figure” by Andrea Avery
“The Ties That Bind” by Tammie Delatorre
“some things I knew by age seven” by Shaina Phenix
Fiction:
“The Night He Said I Love You” by K. C. Mead-Brewer
“Friday to Monday” by Joy Guo
“Call Her No One” by Frances Ogamba
Best Microfiction
Best Microfiction 2022 will be published by Pelekinesis in the summer of 2022. 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 Tania Hershman serve as final judge.
Microfiction:
“I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream” by Chelsea Stickle
“Contingencies” by Susan Perabo
“My Father Takes Me to the Rodeo” by Francine Witte
“Let’s Say, Triptych” by Steven Sherrill
Best of luck to all our nominated contributors and to all contributors whose work will be considered in The Best American Essays, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories.