Iowa Short Fiction Award

{{Short description|Annual literary award}} {{Infobox award | name = Iowa Short Fiction Award | previous_awards =  | previous_date =  | pending_awards =  | pending_date =  | qid = | suppressfields = | fetchwikidata = | image = | image_size =  | alt = | image_caption =  | native_name = | type = Short story award | awarded_for = | description = | sponsor = | date = | venue =  | onlysourced = | noicon = | country = United States | presenter = University of Iowa Press | eligibility = | post-nominals = | ribbon = | obverse = | reverse = | host =  | former_name =  | preshow_host = | acts = | campaign = | motto = | clasps = | reward = | status = | established = | firstawarded = 1969 | final_award =  | holder_label = | holder =  | most_wins =  | most_nominations = | total_awarded = | total_awarded_posthumously = | total_recipients = | award1_type = | award1_winner = | award2_type = | award2_winner = | award3_type = | award3_winner = | award4_type = | award4_winner = | award5_type = | award5_winner = | website = {{URL|uiowapress.org}} | coverage = | network =  | runtime = | viewership =  | producer = | director = | image2 = | image2_size =  | alt2 = | caption2 = | precedence_label = | higher = | same = | individual = | lower = | related = | previous = | main = | next = }}

'''The Iowa Short Fiction Award''' is an annual award given for a first collection of short fiction. It has been described as "a respected prize" by the ''Chicago Tribune'', and ''The New York Times'' considered it "among the most prestigious literary prizes America offers."<ref>{{Cite web|date=2002|title=The Iowa Award: The Best Stories|url=https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/books/496/|access-date=2022-06-27|website=Scholar Works}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Bannon|first=Barbara|date=April 19, 1987|title=In Short: Fiction|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/19/books/in-short-fiction.html|access-date=2022-06-27|website=The New York Times}}</ref>

The award was founded by the University of Iowa Press in 1969, and has been continuously presented to a writer of short stories each year since. In 1988, a companion award called the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, named for the original director of the University of Iowa Press, was instituted. Both the Iowa Short Fiction Award and the John Simmons Short Fiction Award are juried through the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and winning books are published by the University of Iowa Press.

Select stories from winning entries are included in ''The Iowa Award: The Best Stories from Twenty Years'' and ''The Iowa Award: The Best Stories, 1991-2000'', with selections by American author Frank Conroy.

==Winners of the Iowa Short Fiction Award by year== * 2022: '''''Stories No One Hopes Are About Them''''' by A. J. Bermudez * 2021: '''''The Boundaries of Their Dwelling''''' by Blake Sanz<ref>{{Cite web|last=Peynado|first=Brenda|date=November 30, 2021|title=Stories Anchored in Place, from Japan to the U.S.-Mexican Border|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/books/review/people-from-my-neighborhood-hiromi-kawakami-blake-sanz-boundaries-of-their-dwelling-what-if-we-were-somewhere-else-wendy-j-fox.html|access-date=2022-05-30|website=The New York Times}}</ref> * 2020: '''''Father Guards the Sheep''''' by Sari Rosenblatt * 2019: '''''Not a Thing to Comfort You''''' by Emily Wortman-Wunder * 2018: '''''The Water Diviner and Other Stories''''' by Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer * 2017: '''''Outside Is the Ocean''''' by Matthew Lansburgh * 2016: '''''November Storm''''' by Robert Oldshue * 2015: '''''Night in Erg Chebbi and Other Stories''''' by Edward Hamlin * 2014: '''''The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons''''' by Heather A. Slomski * 2013: '''''Lungs Full of Noise''''' by Tessa Mellas * 2012: '''''Safe As Houses''''' by Marie-Helene Bertino * 2011: '''''Power Ballads''''' by Will Boast * 2010: '''''The Company of Heaven: Stories from Haiti''''' by Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell * 2009: '''''All That Work and Still No Boys''''' by Kathryn Ma * 2008: '''''Invite''''' by Glen Pourciau * 2007: '''''Desert Gothic''''' by Don Waters * 2006: '''''Things Kept, Things Left Behind''''' by Jim Tomlinson * 2005: '''''The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space''''' by Doug Trevor * 2004: '''''What You've Been Missing''''' by Janet Desaulniers * 2003: '''''Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona''''' by Ryan Harty * 2002: '''''Her Kind of Want''''' by Jennifer S. Davis * 2001: '''''Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America''''' by Sohrab Homi Fracis * 2000: '''''Troublemakers''''' by John McNally * 1999: '''''House Fires''''' by Nancy Reisman * 1998: '''''The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala''''' by Mark Brazaitis * 1997: '''''Thank You for Being Concerned and Sensitive''''' by Jim Henry * 1996: '''''Hints of His Mortality''''' by David Borofka * 1995: '''''May You Live in Interesting Times''''' by Tereze Glück * 1994: '''''Igloo Among Palms''''' by Rod Val Moore * 1993: '''''Where Love Leaves Us''''' by Renée Manfredi and '''''Macauley's Thumb''''' by Lex Williford * 1992: '''''My Body to You''''' by Elizabeth Searle * 1991: '''''Traps''''' by Sondra Spatt Olsen * 1990: '''''A Hole in the Language''''' by Marly Swick * 1989: '''''Lent: The Slow Fast''''' by Starkey Flythe, Jr. * 1988: '''''The Long White''''' by Sharon Dilworth * 1987: '''''Fruit of the Month''''' by Abby Frucht and '''''Star Game''''' by Lucia Nevai * 1986: '''''Eminent Domain''''' by Dan O'Brien and '''''Resurrectionists''''' by Russell Working<ref>{{Cite web|last=Zinnes|first=Harriet|date=April 26, 1987|title=In Short: Fiction|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/26/books/in-short-fiction.html|access-date=2022-06-27|website=The New York Times}}</ref> * 1985: '''''Dancing in the Movies''''' by Robert Boswell * 1984: '''''Old Wives' Tales''''' by Susan M. Dodd * 1983: '''''Heart Failure''''' by Ivy Goodman * 1982: '''''Shiny Objects''''' by Dianne Benedict * 1981: '''''The Phototropic Woman''''' by Annabel Thomas * 1980: '''''Impossible Appetites''''' by James Fetler * 1979: '''''Fly Away Home''''' by Mary Hedin * 1978: '''''A Nest of Hooks''''' by Lon Otto * 1977: '''''The Women in the Mirror''''' by Pat Carr * 1976: '''''The Black Velvet Girl''''' by C.E. Poverman * 1975: '''''Harry Belten and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto''''' by Barry Targan * 1974: '''''After the First Death There Is No Other''''' by Natalie L. M. Petesch * 1973: '''''The Itinerary of Beggars''''' by H. E. Francis * 1972: '''''The Burning and Other Stories''''' by Jack Cady * 1971: '''''Old Morals, Small Continents, Darker Times''''' by Philip F. O'Connor * 1970: '''''The Beach Umbrella''''' by Cyrus Colter

==Winners of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award by year== * 2022: '''''The Woods''''' by Janice Obuchowski * 2021: '''''You Never Get It Back''''' by Cara Blue Adams<ref>{{Cite web|last=Ward|first=Sophie|date=December 15, 2021|title=In Fragments, Debut Stories Render Early Adulthood's Quiet Challenges|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/books/review/you-never-get-it-back-cara-blue-adams.html|access-date=2022-05-30|website=The New York Times}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Ricciardelli|first=Michael|date=April 8, 2021|title=Creative Writing Professor Wins Iowa Short Fiction Award |url=https://www.shu.edu/arts-sciences/news/creative-writing-professor-wins-iowa-short-fiction-award.cfm|access-date=2022-06-27|website=Seton Hall University}}</ref> * 2020: '''''Ancestry''''' by Eileen O'Leary * 2019: '''''Happy Like This''''' by Ashley Wurzbacher * 2018: '''''The Lightning Jar''''' by Christian Felt * 2017: '''''What Counts as Love''''' by Marian Crotty * 2016: '''''Of This New World''''' by Allegra Hyde * 2015: '''''Excommunicados''''' by Charles Haverty * 2014: '''''Mystical Creatures Attack!''''' by Kathleen Founds * 2013: '''''If I'd Known You Were Coming''''' by Kate Milliken * 2012: '''''Tell Everyone I Said Hi''''' by Chad Simpson * 2011: '''''Pulp and Paper''''' by Josh Rolnick * 2010: '''''Lester Higata's 20th Century''''' by Barbara Hamby * 2009: '''''How to Leave Hialeah: Stories from the Heart of Miami''''' by Jennine Capó Crucet * 2008: '''''One Dog Happy''''' by Molly McNett * 2007: '''''Whose World Is This?''''' by Lee Montgomery * 2006: '''''Permanent Visitors''''' by Kevin Moffett * 2005: '''''This Day in History''''' by Anthony Varallo * 2004: '''''Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes''''' by Merrill Feitell * 2003: '''''American Wives''''' by Beth Helms * 2002: '''''The Kind of Things Saints Do''''' by Laura Valeri * 2001: '''''Fire Road''''' by Donald Anderson * 2000: '''''Articles of Faith''''' by Elizabeth Oness * 1999: '''''Out of the Girls' Room and into the Night''''' by Thisbe Nissen * 1998: '''''Friendly Fire''''' by Kathryn Chetkovich * 1997: '''''Within the Lighted City''''' by Lisa Lenzo * 1996: '''''Western Electric''''' by Don Zancanella * 1995: '''''Listening to Mozart''''' by Charles Wyatt * 1994: '''''The Good Doctor''''' by Susan Onthank Mates * 1993: '''''Happiness''''' by Ann Harleman * 1992: '''''Imaginary Men''''' by Enid Shomer * 1991: '''''The Ant Generator''''' by Elizabeth Harris * 1989: '''''Line of Fall''''' by Miles Wilson * 1988: '''''The Venus Tree''''' by Michael Pritchett

==Guest judges by year== {{div col|colwidth=22em}} * 2022: Anthony Marra * 2021: Brandon Taylor * 2020: Tom Drury * 2019: Carmen Maria Machado * 2018: Rebecca Lee * 2017: Andre Dubus III * 2016: Bennett Sims * 2015: Karen Russell * 2014: Wells Tower * 2013: Julie Orringer * 2012: Jim Shepard * 2011: Yiyun Li * 2000: Elizabeth McCracken * 1999: Marilynne Robinson * 1998: Stuart Dybek * 1997: Ann Beattie * 1996: Oscar Hijeulos * 1995: Ethan Canin * 1994: Joy Williams * 1993: Francine Prose * 1992: James Salter * 1991: Marilynne Robinson * 1990: Jayne Anne Phillips * 1989: Gail Godwin * 1988: Robert Stone * 1987: Alison Lurie * 1986: Tobias Wolff * 1985: Tim O'Brien * 1984: Frederick Busch * 1983: Alice Adams * 1982: Raymond Carver * 1981: Doris Grumbach * 1980: Francine du Plessix Gray * 1979: John Gardner * 1978: Stanley Elkin * 1977: Leonard Michaels * 1976: Donald Bathelme * 1975: George P. Garrett * 1974: William H. Gass * 1973: John Hawkes * 1972: Joyce Carol Oates * 1971: George P. Elliott * 1970: Vance Bourjaily and Kurt Vonnegut {{div col end}}

== References == {{reflist}}

==External links== *[http://www.uiowapress.org/ University of Iowa Press] *[https://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/about/iowa-short-fiction-awards/ Iowa Short Fiction Award] *[http://uiowapress.org/search/browse-series/browse-ISFA.htm/ Iowa Short Fiction Award Winners]

Category:Short story awards Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop Category:Awards established in 1969 Category:1969 establishments in Iowa Category:American fiction awards