2024 Nominations
Each year we are privileged to be able to nominate work for anthologies and awards including Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers (Best Debut Short Stories). 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.
Best of the Net
The Best of the Net is 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.
Prose Poetry
“Night Sky with Generations” by Rebe Huntman
“Still Awake” by Julie Marie Wade
Creative Nonfiction
“Hott Lipps” by Matthew Clark Davison
“Twelve” by Elissa Lash
Short Fiction
“Wet” by Jaclyn Desforges
“Churchgoing” by Jenny Feldon
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
“The Lighthouse Keepers” by Jen Colclough
Excerpts from The Space Between by Herb Harris
“Racing,” Excerpt from My Heart Is a Bomb by Tori Malcangio
Short Fiction
“Churchgoing” by Jenny Feldon
“Corpse Washer” by Jennifer Springsteen
“because if something no right, you no suppose sit down and look” by Ayotola Tehingbola
Best Small Fictions
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 ninth year of existence, Best Small Fictions features the best microfiction, flash fiction, haibun stories, and prose poetry from around the world.
Originally founded by Tara L. Masih, Best Small Fictions is now steered by series editor Nathan Leslie, who has served in this role since 2019. Guest editors have included Pulitzer Prize-winner 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), PEN/Faulkner-nominee Rilla Askew (2019), Sonder Press operator Elena Stiehler (2020), PEN/Bingham Prize-winner Rion Amilcar Scott (2021), Bridport Prize-winner Elaine Chiew (2022), and People’s Book Prize-winner Catherine McNamara (2023), , and Story Prize longlister Amber Sparks (2024).
Flash Fiction
“Sweet Knife” by Dana Brewer Harris
“Some guilty pleasures on this side of the border” by Moisés R. Delgado
“Floaters” by Kelle Groom
“Analysis of a Fugue” by Annabel Li
“Landscape Grown Cold” by Carolynn Mireault
Best of luck to all our nominated contributors and to all contributors whose work will be considered for The Best American Essays, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories.