The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to
short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the
American master of the form,
O. Henry.
The
PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories is an annual collection of the year's twenty best stories published in U.S. and
Canadian magazines, written in English.
The award itself is called the O. Henry
Award, not the O. Henry
Prize, though until recently there were first, second, and third prize winners; the collection is called the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and the original collection was called
Prize Stories 1919: The O. Henry Memorial Awards.
History and format
The award was first presented in 1919
. As of 2003, the series editor chooses twenty short stories, each one an O. Henry Prize Story. All stories originally written in the English language and published in an American or Canadian periodical are eligible for consideration. Three jurors are appointed annually. The jurors receive the twenty prize stories in manuscript form, with no identification of author or publication. Each juror, acting independently, chooses a short story of special interest and merit, and comments on that story.
The goal of The O. Henry Prize Stories remains to strengthen the art of the short story. Starting in 2003,
The O. Henry Prize Stories is dedicated to a writer who has made a major contribution to the art of the short story. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007 was dedicated to
Sherwood Anderson, a U.S. short-story writer. Jurors for 2007 were
Charles D'Ambrosio,
Lily Tuck, and
Ursula K. Le Guin.
The current series
editor for
The O. Henry Prize Stories is
Laura Furman.
Partnership with PEN American Center
In 2009 the O. Henry Prize Stories publisher, Anchor Books, announced that it would rename the series in partnership with the PEN American Center, producing the first PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories collection. Proceeds from The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009 would be directed to PEN's Readers & Writers Program, which sends well-known authors to under served inner-city schools.
The selection included stories by
Graham Joyce,
Kristen Sundberg Lunstrum,
E. V. Slate,
John Burnside,
Mohan Sikka,
L. E. Miller,
Alistair Morgan,
Roger Nash,
Manuel Muñoz,
Caitlin Horrocks,
Ha Jin,
Paul Theroux,
Judy Troy,
Nadine Gordimer,
Viet Dinh,
Karen Brown (author),
Marisa Silver,
Paul Yoon,
Andrew Sean Greer, and
Junot Díaz, with
A.S. Byatt,
Tim O'Brien (author), and
Anthony Doerr--all authors of past O. Henry Prize Stories—serving as the prize jury.
In an interview for the
Vintage Books and Anchor Books blog, editor
Laura Furman called the collaboration with PEN a "natural partnership."
Juror favorites, first-prize winners
For more information or complete lists of yearly winners, visit the O. Henry Prize Stories website.
See also
