When the three judges for The Story Prize make their choices, they provide citations for the books. This year's judges were critic and writer Ismail Muhammad, Margot Sage-EL of Watchung Booksellers, and writer and Williams College professor Karen Shepard. We include the citations in congratulatory letters we present to each finalist, along with their checks ($20,000 to the winner, $5,000 to the other two finalists). To protect the confidentiality of the judges' votes and the integrity of the process, we don't attribute citations to any particular judge.
Here is what the judges had to say about The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans:“The brilliant and original title novella is the showstopper in this collection, but the other six stories are gems, as well. I marvel at Evans’ ability to take on serious subjects—such as grief, gender, race, and the distorting lens of history—while at the same time writing thoroughly absorbing and entertaining narratives. Her technical skills, both on the sentence and story level, are impressive. Evans seems able to draw upon a range of narrative approaches, finding what’s exactly right for every story. What’s most uncanny is that these stories, though written over several years, feel completely of the present moment.”
Watch a video
that includes a reading by and conversation with Danielle Evans
and the other two finalists for The Story Prize, including winner Deesha
Philyaw.
