THE STORY PRIZE FINALISTS FOR BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 2022 ARE ANDREA BARRETT, LING MA, AND MORGAN TALTY
The Story Prize, now in its 19th year, is pleased to honor as its finalists three compelling short story collections chosen from 119 submissions representing 79 different publishers or imprints. They are:
Natural History by Andrea Barrett (W.W. Norton)
Bliss Montage by Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (Tin House)
Natural History by Andrea Barrett is a collection of six immersive stories that span more than a century and center around generations of women scientists; Ling Ma’s Bliss Montage is a volume of eight meticulously crafted stories that uneasily blur the line between the real and the surreal; and Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty is a debut consisting of twelve riveting stories set in and around the Penobscot reservation in Maine.
Our three judges—critic, editor, and writer Adam Dalva; writer Danielle Evans; and bookseller and podcaster Miwa Messer—will determine the winner.
On March 15, The Story Prize will livestream a private event that will feature readings by and interviews with each of the three finalists, culminating in the announcement of the winner, who will receive $20,000 and an engraved silver bowl. The two runners-up will each receive $5,000. A link to the livestream will be available via The Story Prize website and social media.
About The Authors
photo: Barry Goldstein
Andrea Barrett is the author of nine previous works of fiction, including the National Book Award–winning Ship Fever and Pulitzer Prize finalist Servants of the Map. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Fellowship, as well as a past finalist for The Story Prize and a recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story. Having lived in Rochester, New York, and western Massachusetts, Barrett now resides in the Adirondacks.
photo: Anjali Pinto
Ling Ma is a writer hailing from Fujian, Utah, and Kansas. She is the author of the novel Severance, which received the Kirkus Prize, a Whiting Award, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. She lives in Chicago with her family.
photo: Tin House
Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. His first book, Night of the Living Rez, won the 2022 New England Book Award for Fiction. It has also been named a finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction and Barnes & Noble Discover Award as well as A New York Times, TIME, NPR, Esquire, Oprah Daily, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2022. One of Narrative’s “30 Below 30,” Talty’s work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, Granta, LitHub, and elsewhere. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Maine, Orono and lives in Levant, Maine.
BRANDON TAYLOR’S FILTHY ANIMALS WAS THE 18th AND MOST RECENT WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE, ANNOUNCED IN APRIL 2022
About The Story Prize
Past winners have been Edwidge Danticat, Patrick O'Keeffe, Mary Gordon, Jim Shepard, Tobias Wolff, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Anthony Doerr, Steven Millhauser, Claire Vaye Watkins, George Saunders, Elizabeth McCracken, Adam Johnson, Rick Bass, Elizabeth Strout, Lauren Groff, Edwidge Danticat (a second time), and, most recently, Deesha Philyaw.
The deadlines for submitting 2022 books are July 15 for books published in the first half of the year and Nov. 15 for books published in the second half. You can find a list of short story collections submitted for The Story Prize in 2022 at Bookshop.org.
The Story Prize is a $20,000 book prize awarded to the author of the short story collection named best of the year by three independent judges.
“The Story Prize―which recognizes the best story collection to be published each year―has quickly established itself as a nifty jewel in a writer’s crown.”
An anthology of stories by past winners of this award,
The Story Prize: 15 Years of Great Short Fiction (Catapult Books), is available wherever books are sold. Introducing the stories are excerpts from on-stage interviews with the authors
at the annual Story Prize award events.
The Story Prize Partners
The Story Prize is a Literary Hub partner
Publisher of The Story Prize anthology