The Story Prize Longlist for Story Collections Published in 2023

At The Story Prize, we announce our shortlist of three finalists first—as we did a few weeks ago—then release our longlist later. The three finalists, The Story Prize Spotlight Award winner (which we recently announced), and the longlist combine to highlight 20 books. Here are the books published in 2023 that we've chosen:

        •  Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal (Simon & Schuster)
        •  Witness by Jamel Brinkley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
        •  I Meant It Once by Kate Doyle (Algonquin Books)
        •  The Faraway World by Patricia Engle (Avid Reader Press)
        •  Elsewhere by Yan Ge (Scribner)
        •  After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley (Alfred A. Knopf)
        •  Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny (Alfred A. Knopf)
        •  The Best Possible Experience by Nishanth Injam (Pantheon)
        •  So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan (Grove Press)
        •  Disruptions by Steven Millhauser (Alfred A. Knopf)
        •  I Am My Country by Kenan Orhan (Random House)
        •  The Disappeared by Andrew Porter (Alfred A. Knopf)
        •  This Is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara (W.W. Norton)
        •  The People Who Report More Stress by Alejandro Varela (Astra House)
        •  Dearborn by Ghassan Zeineddine (Tin House)
        •  The Sorrows of Others by Ada Zhang (A Public Space)

Last year, The Story Prize received 113 books published by 84 different publishers or imprints. We read more worthwhile short story collections than is practical to include on our longlist, and it was very difficult to narrow down the choices. (That's why we take extra time to do some rereading before releasing our list.) As always, we believe that every writer who writes and publishes a short story collection has accomplished something significant and deserves a ton of credit. 

We've put together a Bookshop list of all the story collections that we received in 2023, many more worth reading than can fit on our longlist. We'll announce the 20th winner of The Story Prize on March 26 at a private event featuring readings by and interviews with the three finalists—Yiyun Li, Bennett Sims, and Paul Yoon. Before then, we'll provide links to watch the program live or online in the days that follow the announcement of the winner.

The Goth House Experiment by SJ Sindu Wins The Story Prize Spotlight Award

In addition to naming three finalists each year, we also present The Story Prize Spotlight Award to a collection of exceptional merit. Selected books 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 includes a prize of $1,000. 

We're pleased to announce that the winner for books published in 2023 is The Goth House Experiment by SJ Sindu, published by Soho Press. These six inventive stories, perfectly executed, stood out from the pack. 

Photo by Sarah Bodri

SJ Sindu is a Tamil diaspora writer whose other works include the novels Marriage of a Thousand Lies (winner of the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and an ALA Stonewall Honor Book) and Blue-Skinned Gods (finalist for a Lambda Literary Award), as well as the graphic novel Shakti and the chapbooks I Once Met You But You Were Dead and Dominant Genes. Sindu holds a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Florida State University and is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University.

This is the 12th time we've given out The Story Prize Spotlight Award. The nine previous winners were: Drifting House by Krys Lee, Byzantium by Ben Stroud, Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor, Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine, Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar, Subcortical by Lee Conell, Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy, The Trojan War Museum by Ayşe Papatya Bucak, Inheritors by Asako Serizawaand, Born Into This by Adam Thompson, and, most recently, God's Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu. 

You can find links to all eleven books, including Sindu's, on Bookshop, in the list Winners of The Story Prize Spotlight Award.

We'll announce the winner of The Story Prize on March 26 at a private event, which we'll live stream, featuring readings by and interviews with the three finalists: Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li, Other Minds and Other Stories by Bennett Sims, and The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon. And soon we'll post a long list of short story collections published in 2023.