The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press 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. Independent press is general ...

es over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to submit up to six works they have featured. Anthologies of the selected works have been published annually since 1976. It is supported and staffed by volunteers.

Editors

The founding editors were

Anaïs Nin Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (February 11, 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, Charles Newman,

Daniel Halper Daniel Halper is an American political writer. He previously served as the online editor of the now-defunct neoconservative magazine ''The Weekly Standard'' until a management change at that publication in 2016 and from 2016 to 2017 was employed b ...

Gordon Lish Gordon Lish (born February 11, 1934 in Hewlett, New York) is an American writer. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Rick Bass, and Richard Ford. He is the father of t ...

, Harry Smith,

Hugh Fox Hugh Bernard Fox Jr. (February 12, 1932 – September 4, 2011) was a writer, novelist, poet and anthropologist and one of the founders (with Ralph Ellison, Anaïs Nin, Paul Bowles, Joyce Carol Oates, Buckminster Fuller and others) of the Pu ...

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

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 non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

, Len Fulton, Leonard Randolph, Leslie Fiedler, Nona Balakian,

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, Ralph Ellison, Reynolds Price, 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. Over 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, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trau ...

, Steven Barthelme, Rick Bass, Charles Baxter,

Bruce Boston Bruce Boston (born 1943) is an American speculative fiction writer and poet. Early years Bruce Boston was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California.Diane SeversonInterview with Bruce Boston''Amazing Stories'' March 15, 2013 (accessed Se ...

, Anne Carson, Raymond Carver,

Joshua Clover Joshua Clover (born December 30, 1962 in Berkeley, California) is a writer and a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California Davis. He is a published scholar, poet, critic, and journalist whose work has been t ...

, Junot Diaz,

Andre Dubus Andre Jules Dubus II (August 11, 1936 – February 24, 1999) was an American short story writer and essayist. Biography Early life and education Andre Jules Dubus II was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the youngest child of Katherine (Burke) ...

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 Suzanne Kamata (born September 29, 1965) is an American author and educator. About Kamata was born in Grand Haven, Michigan on September 29, 1965. She studied at Kalamazoo College, the University of South Carolina, and has an MFA in creative ...

, Seán Mac Falls,

William Monahan William J. Monahan (born November 3, 1960) is an American screenwriter and novelist. His second produced screenplay was ''The Departed'', a film that earned him a Writers Guild of America Award and Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Wr ...

, Paul Muldoon, Tim O'Brien, Lance Olsen,

Miha Mazzini Miha Mazzini (born 3 June 1961 in Jesenice, Yugoslavia) 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 ha ...

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

Kevin Prufer Kevin D. Prufer (born 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American poet, academic, editor, and essayist. His most recent books are ''How He Loved Them'' ( Four Way Books, 2018),''Churches'' ( Four Way Books, 2014), ''In A Beautiful Country'' ( Four ...

, Kay Ryan, Mona Simpson,

Ana Menéndez Ana Menéndez (born 1970 in Los Angeles) is an American writer and journalist. Early life Menéndez was born to Cuban exile parents who fled to Los Angeles, California in 1964. Menéndez's parents expected to return to Cuba at any time and prepa ...

Ladette Randolph Ladette Randolph is an American author and editor. Ladette 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, ''Leav ...

Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar (کاوه اکبر) is an Iranian-American poet and scholar. Early life and education Akbar was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1989, and grew up across the United States including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Indiana. He moved ...

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 ...

Recognition

The anthology has earned national recognition. ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' praised it as " st 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''. The Pushcart Prize series was honored with the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle in 2005, and the Poets & Writers/Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers award in 2006.

References

{{Authority control American literary awards American poetry awards 1976 establishments in New York (state) Awards established in 1976