The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

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 Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

magazines. Along with ''

The Best American Short Stories ''The Best American Short Stories'' is a yearly anthology that's part of ''The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the ''BASS'' has anthologized more than 2,000 short stories, including works by some of the ...

'', the O. Henry Prize Stories is one of the two "best-known annual anthologies of short fiction." Until 2002 there were first, second, and third prize winners and from 2003 to 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. 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 Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

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 PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922, and headquartered in New York City, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose goal is to raise awareness for the protection of free expression in the United States and worldwide th ...

), 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, John Burnside, Roger Nash, Manuel Muñoz, Ha Jin,

Paul Theroux Paul Edward Theroux ( ; born April 10, 1941) is an American novelist and travel writer who has written numerous books, including the travelogue '' The Great Railway Bazaar'' (1975). Some of his works of fiction have been adapted as feature films ...

, Judy Troy,

Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...

, Marisa Silver, Paul Yoon,

Andrew Sean Greer Andrew Sean Greer (born November 21, 1970) is an American novelist and short story writer. Greer received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel ''Less (novel), Less''. He is the author of ''The Story of a Marriage'', which ''The New ...

, and

Junot Díaz Junot Díaz ( ; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican American writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at '' Boston Review''. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience ...

, 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 Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was acquired by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Ho ...

and Anchor Books blog, editor Laura Furman called the collaboration with PEN a "natural partnership"."Two Literary Lions Merge"
"

", 2009-04-10.

First-prize winners (1919–2002)

Juror favorites (2003–2019)

Guest editor (2021–present)

References

External links

*
O. Henry Prize, PEN Announce Partnership

2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories

at

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

(via Archive.org)
Past winners (by date, 1919–1999)
at

's ''Bold Type'' (via Archive.org)
Compilations by year
{{O. Henry PEN America awards Awards established in 1919 1919 establishments in the United States * Short story awards