O. Henry Award

O. Henry Award
Country	United States
First awarded	1919 (age 105–106)

The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer 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.

Until 2002 there were first, second, and third prize winners and from 2003–2019 there were three jurors who each selected a short story of special interest or merit; 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 and funded by the Society of Arts and Sciences. As of 2021, the guest editor chooses twenty short stories, each an O. Henry Prize story. All stories published in an American or Canadian periodical are eligible for consideration, including stories that have been translated into English.

The goal of The O. Henry Prize Stories remains to strengthen the art of the short story.

The current series editor for The O. Henry Prize Stories is Jenny Minton Quigley. Past series editors have been: Blanche Colton Williams (1919–32), Harry Hansen (1933–40), Herschel Brickell (1941–51), Paul Engle (1954–59), Mary Stegner (1960), Richard Poirier (1961–66, assisted by William Abrahams, 1964–66), William Abrahams (1967–96), Larry Dark (1997–2002) and Laura Furman (2003–2019). There were no volumes of the series in 1952 and 1953 (due to Herschel Brickell's death), 2004 and 2020.

Partnership with PEN American Center

In 2009 The O. Henry Prize Stories publisher, Anchor Books, renamed the series in partnership with the PEN American Center (today PEN America), 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, Kirsten 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, Marisa Silver, Paul Yoon, Andrew Sean Greer, and Junot Díaz, with A. S. Byatt, Tim O'Brien 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."

Guest editor (2021–), Juror favorites (2003–2019), First-prize winners (1919–2002)

Source: The O. Henry Prize Stories past winners.

2022	Valeria Luiselli
2021	Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2020	No edition
2019	Tessa Hadley: "Funny Little Snake" in The New Yorker Rachel Kondo: "Girl of Few Seasons" in Ploughshares Solos Weike Wang: "Omakase" in The New Yorker
2018	Jo Ann Beard: "The Tomb of Wrestling" in Tin House Marjorie Celona: "Counterblast" in The Southern Review
2017	Michelle Huneven: "Too Good to Be True" in Harper's Amit Majmudar: "Secret Lives of the Detainees" in The Kenyon Review Fiona McFarlane: "Buttony" in The New Yorker
2016	Elizabeth Genovise: "Irises" in Cimarron Review Asako Serizawa: "Train to Harbin" in The Hudson Review Frederic Tuten: "Winter, 1965" in BOMB
2015	Elizabeth McCracken: "Birdsong from the Radio" in Zoetrope: All-Story Christopher Merkner: "Cabins" in Subtropics Dina Nayeri: "A Ride Out of Phrao" in The Alaska Quarterly Review
2014	Mark Haddon: "The Gun" in Granta Kristen Iskandrian: "The Inheritors" in Tin House Laura van den Berg: "Opa-locka" in The Southern Review
2013	Andrea Barrett: "The Particles" in Tin House Deborah Eisenberg: "Your Duck Is My Duck" in Fence Kelly Link: "The Summer People" in Tin House
2012	Yiyun Li: "Kindness" in A Public Space Alice Munro: "Corrie" in The New Yorker
2011	Lynn Freed: "Sunshine" in Narrative Magazine Matthew Neill Null: "Something You Can't Live Without" in Oxford American Jim Shepard: "Your Fate Hurtles Down at You" in Electric Literature
2010	James Lasdun: "Oh, Death" in The Paris Review, Spring 2009 Daniyal Mueenuddin: "A Spoiled Man" in The New Yorker, September 15, 2008 William Trevor: "The Woman of the House" in The New Yorker, December 15, 2008
2009	Junot Díaz: "Wildwood" in The New Yorker Graham Joyce: "An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen" in The Paris Review
2008	Alice Munro: "What Do You Want To Know For?" in The American Scholar William Trevor: "Folie a Deux" in The New Yorker Alexi Zentner: "Touch" in Tin House
2007	Eddie Chuculate: "Galveston Bay, 1826" in Manoa, Winter 2004 William Trevor: "The Room" in The New Yorker, May 16, 2005
2006	Deborah Eisenberg: "Window" in Tin House, Spring 2004 Edward P. Jones: "Old Boys, Old Girls" in The New Yorker, May 3, 2004 Alice Munro: "Passion" in The New Yorker, March 22, 2004
2005	Sherman Alexie: "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" in The New Yorker, April 21, 2003 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: "Refuge in London" in Zoetrope, Winter 2003 Elizabeth Stuckey-French: "Mudlavia" in The Atlantic Monthly, September 2003
2004	No edition
2003	A. S. Byatt: "The Thing in The Forest" in The New Yorker, June 3, 2002 Denis Johnson: "Train Dreams" in The Paris Review, Summer 2002
2002	Kevin Brockmeier: "The Ceiling" in McSweeney's
2001	Mary Swan: "The Deep" in The Malahat Review
2000	John Edgar Wideman: "Weight" in The Callaloo Journal
1999	Peter Baida: "A Nurse's Story" in The Gettysburg Review
1998	Lorrie Moore: "People Like That Are the Only People Here" in The New Yorker, January 27, 1997
1997	Mary Gordon: "City Life" in Ploughshares
1996	Stephen King: "The Man in the Black Suit" in The New Yorker, October 31, 1994
1995	Cornelia Nixon: "The Women Come and Go" in New England Review, Spring 1994
1994	Alison Baker: "Better Be Ready 'Bout Half Past Eight" in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1993
1993	Thom Jones: "The Pugilist at Rest" in The New Yorker, December 2, 1991
1992	Cynthia Ozick: "Puttermesser Paired" in The New Yorker, October 8, 1990
1991	John Updike: "A Sandstone Farmhouse" in The New Yorker, June 11, 1990
1990	Leo E. Litwak: "The Eleventh Edition" in TriQuarterly, Winter 1989
1989	Ernest J. Finney: "Peacocks" in The Sewanee Review, Winter 1988
1988	Raymond Carver: "Errand" in The New Yorker, June 1, 1987
1987	Louise Erdrich: "Fleur" in Esquire, August 1986 Joyce Johnson: "The Children's Wing" in Harper's Magazine, July 1986
1986	Alice Walker: "Kindred Spirits" in Esquire, August 1985
1985	Stuart Dybek: "Hot Ice" in Antaeus Jane Smiley: "Lily" in The Atlantic Monthly
1984	Cynthia Ozick: "Rosa" in The New Yorker, March 21, 1983
1983	Raymond Carver: "A Small, Good Thing" in Ploughshares
1982	Susan Kenney: "Facing Front" in Epoch, Winter 1980
1981	Cynthia Ozick: "The Shawl" in The New Yorker, May 26, 1980
1980	Saul Bellow: "A Silver Dish" in The New Yorker, September 25, 1978
1979	Gordon Weaver: "Getting Serious" in The Sewanee Review, Fall 1977
1978	Woody Allen: "The Kugelmass Episode" in The New Yorker, May 2, 1977
1977	Shirley Hazzard: "A Long Story Short" in The New Yorker, July 26, 1976 Ella Leffland: "Last Courtesies" in Harper's Magazine, July 1976
1976	Harold Brodkey: "His Son in His Arms, in Light, Aloft" in Esquire, August 1975
1975	Harold Brodkey: "A Story in an Almost Classical Mode" in The New Yorker, September 17, 1973 Cynthia Ozick: "Usurpation (Other People's Stories)" in Esquire, May 1974
1974	Renata Adler: "Brownstone" in The New Yorker, January 27, 1973
1973	Joyce Carol Oates: "The Dead" in McCall's, July 1971
1972	John Batki: "Strange-Dreaming Charlie, Cow-Eyed Charlie" in The New Yorker, March 20, 1971
1971	Florence M. Hecht: "Twin Bed Bridge" in The Atlantic Monthly, May 1970
1970	Robert Hemenway: "The Girl Who Sang with the Beatles" in The New Yorker, January 11, 1969
1969	Bernard Malamud: "Man in the Drawer" in The Atlantic Monthly, April 1968
1968	Eudora Welty: "The Demonstrators" in The New Yorker, November 26, 1966
1967	Joyce Carol Oates: "In the Region of Ice" in The Atlantic Monthly, August 1966
1966	John Updike: "The Bulgarian Poetess" in The New Yorker, March 13, 1965
1965	Flannery O'Connor: "Revelation" in The Sewanee Review, Spring 1964
1964	John Cheever: "The Embarkment for Cythera" in The New Yorker, November 3, 1962
1963	Flannery O'Connor: "Everything That Rises Must Converge" in New World Writing
1962	Katherine Anne Porter: "Holiday" in The Atlantic Monthly, December 1960
1961	Tillie Olsen: "Tell Me a Riddle" in New World Writing
1960	Lawrence Sargent Hall: "The Ledge" in The Hudson Review, Winter, 1958–59
1959	Peter Taylor: "Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time" in The Kenyon Review
1958	Martha Gellhorn: "In Sickness as in Health" in The Atlantic Monthly
1957	Flannery O'Connor: "Greenleaf" in The Kenyon Review
1956	John Cheever: "The Country Husband" in The New Yorker
1955	Jean Stafford: "In the Zoo" in The New Yorker
1954	Thomas Mabry: "The Indian Feather" in The Sewanee Review
1953	No edition
1952	No edition
1951	Harris Downey: "The Hunters" in Epoch
1950	Wallace Stegner: "The Blue-Winged Teal" in Harper's Magazine
1949	William Faulkner: "A Courtship" in The Sewanee Review
1948	Truman Capote: "Shut a Final Door" in The Atlantic Monthly
1947	John Bell Clayton: "The White Circle" in Harper's Magazine
1946	John Mayo Goss: "Bird Song" in The Atlantic Monthly
1945	Walter Van Tilburg Clark: "The Wind and the Snow of Winter" in The Yale Review
1944	Irwin Shaw: "Walking Wounded" in The New Yorker
1943	Eudora Welty: "Livvie is Back" in The Atlantic Monthly
1942	Eudora Welty: "The Wide Net" in Harper's Magazine
1941	Kay Boyle: "Defeat" in The New Yorker
1940	Stephen Vincent Benét: "Freedom's a Hard-Bought Thing" in The Saturday Evening Post
1939	William Faulkner: "Barn Burning" in Harper's Magazine
1938	Albert Maltz: "The Happiest Man on Earth" in Harper's Magazine
1937	Stephen Vincent Benét: "The Devil and Daniel Webster" in The Saturday Evening Post
1936	James Gould Cozzens: "Total Stranger" in The Saturday Evening Post, February 15, 1936
1935	Kay Boyle: "The White Horses of Vienna" in Harper's Magazine
1934	Louis Paul: "No More Trouble for Jedwick" in Esquire
1933	Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: "Gal Young Un" in Harper's Magazine, June & July 1932
1932	Stephen Vincent Benét: "An End to Dreams" in Pictorial Review, February 1932
1931	Wilbur Daniel Steele: "Can't Cross Jordan by Myself" in Pictorial Review
1930	W. R. Burnett: "Dressing-Up" in Harper's Magazine, November 1929 William M. John: "Neither Jew nor Greek” in Century Magazine, August 1929
1929	Dorothy Parker: "Big Blonde" in Bookman Magazine, February 1929
1928	Walter Duranty: "The Parrot" in Redbook, March 1928
1927	Roark Bradford: "Child of God" in Harper's Magazine, April 1927
1926	Wilbur Daniel Steele: "Bubbles" in Harper's Magazine
1925	Julian Street: "Mr. Bisbee's Princess" in Redbook, May 1925
1924	Inez Haynes Irwin: "The Spring Flight" in McCall's, June 1924
1923	Edgar Valentine Smith: "Prelude" in Harper's Magazine, May 1923
1922	Irvin S. Cobb: "Snake Doctor" in Cosmopolitan, November 1922
1921	Edison Marshall: "The Heart of Little Shikara" in Everybody's Magazine, January 1921
1920	Maxwell Struthers Burt: "Each in His Generation" in Scribner's Magazine, July 1920
1919	Margaret Prescott Montague: "England to America" in The Atlantic Monthly, September 1918

See also

• The Best American Short Stories

External links

• Official website
• O. Henry Prize, PEN Announce Partnership
• 2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories
• Three-time winners
• Past winners (by author, 1919–2017) at Random House (via Archive.org)
• Past winners (by date, 1919–1999) at Random House's Bold Type (via Archive.org)
• Compilations by year