The Pushcart Prize is an American

literary prize A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations Most literary awards come with a corresponding award ceremony. Man ...

published by

Pushcart Press Pushcart Press is a publishing house established in 1972 by Bill Henderson (a one-time associate editor at Doubleday) and is perhaps most famous for its Pushcart Prize and for the anthology of prize winners it publishes annually. History B ...

that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the

small press A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably. However, when a distinction ...

es over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to submit up to six works they have featured. Since 1976, anthologies of selected works have been published on an annual basis. These initiatives are supported and staffed entirely by dedicated volunteers.

Editors

The founding editors were

Anaïs Nin Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell ( ; ; February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the d ...

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

, Charles Newman, Daniel Halpern,

Gordon Lish Gordon Lish (born February 11, 1934) is an American writer. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Rick Bass, Tom Spanbauer, and Richard Ford. He is the father of the no ...

, Harry Smith, Hugh Fox,

Ishmael Reed Ishmael Scott Reed (born February 22, 1938) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his Satire, satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known wor ...

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels ''Black ...

, Len Fulton, Leonard Randolph,

Leslie Fiedler Leslie Aaron Fiedler (March 8, 1917 – January 29, 2003) was an American literary critic, known for his interest in mythography and his championing of genre fiction. His work incorporates the application of psychological theories to American ...

Nona Balakian Nona Balakian (Armenian: Նոնա Պալագեան; September 4, 1918, in Constantinople – August 12, 1991, in New York City) was a literary critic and an editor at the '' New York Times Sunday Book Review''. She served on the Pulitzer Prize com ...

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

Paul Engle Paul Hamilton Engle (October 12, 1908 – March 22, 1991), was an American poet, editor, teacher, literary critic, novelist, and playwright. He is remembered as the long-time director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and as co-founder of the Intern ...

Ralph Ellison Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel '' Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. Ellison wrote '' Shadow and Act'' (1964), a co ...

Reynolds Price Edward Reynolds Price (February 1, 1933 – January 20, 2011) was an American poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist and James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in Biblical ...

, Rhoda Schwartz, Richard Morris, Ted Wilentz, Tom Montag, Bill Henderson and William Phillips. Many guest editors have served this collection over the years. They are listed in each edition that they edited. More than 200 contributing editors make nominations for each edition. They are listed on the masthead.

Winners

Each edition of the Pushcart Prize includes a complete index of presses and writers reprinted in the anthology since 1976. More than 2,000 writers and 600 presses have been selected. Among the writers who received early recognition in Pushcart Prize anthologies were:

Kathy Acker Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 isputed– November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, critic, performance artist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that deal ...

, Steven Barthelme,

Rick Bass Rick Bass (born March 7, 1958) is an American writer and an environmental activist. He has a Bachelor of Science in Geology with a focus in Wildlife from Utah State University. Right after he graduated, he interned for one year as a Wildlife Bio ...

, Charles Baxter,

Bruce Boston Bruce Boston (July 16, 1943 – November 11, 2024) was an American speculative fiction writer and poet. Early years Boston was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California.Diane SeversonInterview with Bruce Boston''Amazing Stories'' March ...

Anne Carson Anne Patricia Carson (born June 21, 1950) is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator, classicist, and professor. Trained at the University of Toronto, Carson has taught classics, comparative literature, and creative writing at universities across ...

Raymond Carver Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He published his first collection of stories, '' Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?'', in 1976. His breakout collection, '' What We Talk About ...

Joshua Clover Joshua Clover (December 30, 1962 – April 26, 2025) was an American poet, writer, professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Davis, and revolutionary. Clover was a published scholar, poet, critic, and jour ...

Junot Diaz Junot is a French name that may refer to the following notable people: ;Given name *Junot Díaz (born 1968), Dominican American ;Surname *Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantes (1784–1838), French writer *Jean-Andoche Junot Jean-Andoche Junot, Duke ...

Andre Dubus Andre Jules Dubus II (August 11, 1936 – February 24, 1999) was an American writer of Short story, short stories, Novel, novels, and Essay, essays. Biography Early life and education Andre Jules Dubus II was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, t ...

William H. Gass William Howard Gass (July 30, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven vol ...

, Suzanne Kamata, Seán Mac Falls,

William Monahan William J. Monahan (born November 3, 1960) is an American screenwriter and novelist. His second produced screenplay ''The Departed'' (2006), an adaptation of Andrew Lau's 2002 gangster film ''Infernal Affairs'', earned him a Writers Guild of Am ...

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he has been both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humani ...

, Tim O'Brien,

Lance Olsen Lance Olsen (born October 14, 1956) is an American writer known for his experimental, lyrical, fragmentary, cross-genre narratives that question the limits of historical knowledge. Biography Lance Olsen was born in New Jersey, United States. ...

Miha Mazzini Miha Mazzini (born 3 June 1961) is a Slovenian writer, screenwriter and film director with thirty published books, translated in ten languages. He has a PhD in anthropology from the Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis and has MA in Creative Writi ...

Peter Orner Peter Orner is an American writer. He is the author of two novels, three short story collections and two books of essays. Orner holds the Professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and was formerly a professor of creativ ...

Kevin Prufer Kevin D. Prufer (born 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American poet, novelist, academic, editor, and essayist. He is Professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. Life Prufer graduated from Western Reserve Aca ...

Kay Ryan Kay Ryan (born September 21, 1945) is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. From 2008 to 2010 she was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate. In 2011 she was named ...

Mona Simpson Mona Simpson (née Jandali; June 14, 1957) is an American novelist. She has written six novels and studied English at University of California, Berkeley, and languages and literature at Columbia University. She won a Whiting Award for her first ...

, Ana Menéndez,

Ladette Randolph Ladette Randolph is an American author and editor. Career Randolph is the author of five books: three novels: ''Private Way'', ''Haven’s Wake'' and ''A Sandhills Ballad'', a short story collection, ''This is Not the Tropics'', and a memoir, ''Le ...

Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar (b. 15 January 1989; Persian language, Persian: کاوه اکبر) is an Iranian American poet, novelist, and editor. He is the author of the poetry collections ''Calling a Wolf a Wolf'' and ''Pilgrim Bell'' and of the novel ''Martyr ...

and

Wells Tower Wells Tower (born April 14, 1973) is an American writer of short stories, non-fiction, feature films and television. In 2009 he published his first short story collection, ''Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) to m ...

Recognition

The Pushcart Prize anthology has earned national recognition. ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...

'' praised it as "must reading for anyone interested in the present and future of America's arts and letters". Pushcart Press was awarded the 1979 Carey Thomas Prize for Publisher of the Year by ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

''. The Pushcart Prize series was honored with the

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award The Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, established in 1981, is an annual literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle in honor of its first president, Ivan Sandrof. The award "is given to a person or institution who has, ove ...

from the

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c) organization, 501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the N ...

in 2005, and the Poets & Writers/Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers award in 2006.

Editors

Winners

Recognition

References

Further reading