Deesha Phillyaw's The Secret Lives of Church Ladies Is the 17th Winner of The Story Prize!

The winner of The Story Prize for books published in 2020 is The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (West Virginia University Press) by Deesha Philyaw. This is the first time that The Story Prize winner has been published by a small or university press, and Philyaw is only the fourth debut writer to take the prize. The others were Patrick O'Keeffe, Daniyal Mueenuddin, and Claire Vaye Watkins.

 

A video we've posted on YouTube features readings by and interviews with Philyaw and the other two finalists for books published in 2020: The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans (Riverhead Books) and Likes by Sarah Shun-lien (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

 

The Story Prize’s $20,000 top prize is among the largest first-prize amounts of any annual U.S. book award for fiction. Philyaw also received an engraved silver bowl, which The Story Prize presents to all winners. As runners-up, Evans and Bynum each received $5,000.

Director Larry Dark, and Founder Julie Lindsey selected the three finalists for The Story Prize, now in its 17th year, from among 121 books entered in 2020, representing 89 different publishers or imprints. Three judges—critic and author Ismail Muhammad, bookseller Margot Sage-EL of Watchung Booksellers, and writer and Williams College professor Karen Shepard—determined the winner from among the three books chosen as finalists. 

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was also a finalist for The National Book Award for fiction and is a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and a Los Angeles Times Book Award. In addition, the book is in development as an HBO series. 

 

Buy The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Likes, and The Office of Historical Corrections from your local bookseller or on Bookshop.

Congratulations to Deesha Philyaw, and West Virginia University Press!

The Story Prize Longlist for Short Story Collections Published in 2020

 

Not pictured: Animal Spirit by Francesca Marciano

In 2020, The Story Prize received as entries 121 books published by 82 publishers or imprints. We choose the shortlist of three finalists first, then release our longlist a few weeks later. The three finalists, The Story Prize Spotlight Award winner, and the longlist combined highlight 24 books this time. Because of the high number of entries last year, we're including a few more books than usual. Here then is our longlist of 20 outstanding short story collections (links are to guest Instagram posts):

• Aligator by Dima Alzayat (Two Dollar Radio)
• Why Visit America by Matthew Baker (Henry Holt and Company)
• Daddy by Emma Cline (Random House)
• Heartland Calamitous by Michael Credico (Autumn House Press)
• If The Body Allows It by Megan Cummins (University of Nebraska Press)
• Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford (Grove Press)
• The Prince of Mournful Thoughts by Caroline Kim (University of Pittsburgh Press)
• Animal Spirit by Francesa Marciano (Pantheon Books)
• Cool for America by Andrew Martin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Why I Don't Write by Susan Minot (Alfred A. Knopf)
• The World Doesn't Work That Way, but It Could by Xyta Maya Murray (University of Nevada Press)
• Sleepovers by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips (Hub City Writers Project)
• Last One Out Shut Off the Lights by Stephanie Soileau (Little, Brown and Company)
• You Will Never Be Forgotten by Mary South (FSG Originals)
• And I Do Not Forgive You by Amber Sparks (Liveright Publishing)
• A House Is a Body by Shruti Swamy (Algonquin Books)
• How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa (Little, Brown and Company)
• I Hold a Wolf by the Ears by Laura van den Berg (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Sansei and Sensibility by Karen Tei Yamashita (Coffee House Press)
• Verge by Lidia Yuknavitch (Riverhead Books)
  
  

Copies of these short story collections are available through our list 2020/21 Story Prize finalists, Spotlight Award winner, and long list books on Bookshop. We've also posted a shopping list of all the short story collections we received as entries in 2020.

Although 2020 was by no means a great year overall, it was a great year for short story collections, and more than a dozen other books could easily have made this list. It's always difficult to narrow the field down, and it seems to get harder every year.

 

Writing, assembling, and publishing a short story collection takes years of creative effort and remarkable perseverance. Every writer who published one in 2020 truly accomplished something significant and deserves an enormous amount of credit.

We'll announce the winner of The Story Prize on March 10, at which time we'll post a video that will feature readings by and interviews with the three finalists: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Danielle Evans, and Deesha Philyaw.

Inheritors by Asako Serizawa Is the Winner of The Story Prize Spotlight Award

Beyond naming three finalists each January, 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 2020 is Inheritors by Asako Serizawa, published by Doubleday. It's a debut collection of thirteen formally inventive, beautifully written, and sometimes heartbreaking stories about five generations of a Japanese family.      

This is the ninth time we've given out The Story Prize Spotlight Award. The eight 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, and The Trojan War Museum by Ayşe Papatya Bucak.

Photo: Matthew Modica

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

We'll announce the winner of The Story Prize on March 10, at which time we'll post a video that will feature readings by and interviews with the three finalists: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Danielle Evans, and Deesha Philyaw. Before then, we'll post a long list of short story collections published in 2020.

The 2020/21 Finalists for The Story Prize Are: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Danielle Evans, and Deesha Philyaw

The Story Prize, now in its 17th year, is pleased to honor as its finalists three outstanding short story collections chosen from 121 submissions representing 89 different publishers or imprints. They are*:

• Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans (Riverhead Books)
• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (West Virginia University Press)

We will announce the winner on the evening of Wednesday, March 10, at which time The Story Prize will post a video including readings by and interviews with finalists Bynum, Evans, and Philyaw, as well as the announcement of the winner and acceptance of the $20,000 top prize and the engraved silver bowl that goes with it. The runners-up will each receive $5,000. 

Story Prize Founder Julie Lindsey and Director Larry Dark selected the finalists. Three independent judges will determine the winner:

• Writer and Critic Ismail Muhammad,
• Independent Bookseller Margot Sage-EL, and
• Author Karen Shepard

In the weeks ahead, we'll announce this year's winner of The Story Prize Spotlight Award. We'll also publish a long list of other exceptional collections we read last year, and more information about the video we'll be posting in lieu of a live event.

* Links for book titles are to Bookshop.org. Links for author names are to guest Instagram posts.

The 2020 Story Prize Judges: Ismail Muhammad, Margot Sage-EL, and Karen Shepard

Clockwise from top left: Ismail Muhammad, Margot Sage-EL,
and Karen Shepard (photo by Barry Goldstein)

We're pleased to announce this year's judges for The Story Prize: writer and critic Ismail Muhammad, bookseller Margot Sage-EL, and writer Karen Shepard.

Each year we enlist three independent members of the literary community to select the winner of The Story Prize from among the three finalists that Founder Julie Lindsey and Director Larry Dark choose from among the typically more than 100 short story collections submitted for the prize. We alternate years between having a bookseller or a librarian as a judge. At least one of the judges is a writer and the other is often a critic or editor.

The final deadline for 2020 entries is November 16. We will announce the three finalists in early January 2021. 

To view more than 50 guest Instagram posts by writers who have published short story collections in 2020, go to instagram.com/thestoryprize/.

About the Judges

Ismail Muhammad is a writer and critic based in Oakland, California. He works as the criticism editor of The Believer, and his writing has appeared in The Nation, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications.

Margot Sage-EL is the owner of Watchung Booksellers, an independent bookseller serving the greater Montclair, New Jersey, community since 1996. She founded Great Owl Books in 1994, a Parents' Choice Award mail order catalog featuring multicultural children's books. She has served on the board of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association and on the ABA's Bookseller Advisory Council.

Karen Shepard is a Chinese-American born and raised in New York City. She is the author of four novels, An Empire of Women, The Bad Boy’s Wife, Don’t I Know You? and The Celestials, and one story collection, Kiss Me Someone. She teaches at Williams College.

In Response to the Pandemic, The Story Prize Is Waiving Entry Fees for 2020

Because of the coronavirus pandemic and its financial impact on writers and publishers, for 2020, The Story Prize is waiving its $75 entry fee. In addition, if conditions are such that it isn’t possible to send printed books, we will accept e-book only submissions. We do, however, reserve the right to not accept particular book entries.

Entry fees and revenue from ticket sales to The Story Prize event, which we split with our partner The New School Creative Writing Program, are our only sources of revenue to offset the costs of operating the award. They cover just a small but important portion of the funding for The Story Prize, all of which the Chisholm Foundation generously provides.

This sacrifice on our part pales in comparison to the efforts of first responders and essential workers—and to the illness and terrible losses many have suffered. We hope for better times ahead.

The mission of The Story Prize remains to encourage and promote the publication and reading of short story collections. Of course, we highly recommend the 16 short story collections we've honored as winners of The Story Prize and the 32 books we've named as finalists. We encourage you to support your local bookseller if you decide to purchase any of these books. Thanks to The New School Creative Writing Program, you can view on YouTube at no cost video of past events, including readings by and interviews with most of the writers we've been fortunate to honor.

Video of The Story Prize Event: Edwidge Danticat (winner), Kali Fajardo-Anstine, and Zadie Smith

Here's the video of The Story Prize event, featuring the three finalists—Edwidge Danticat (the winner), Kali Fajardo-Anstine, and Zadie Smith—reading from and discussing their work: