The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is awarded by the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headq ...
. The $5,000 prize is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories in the preceding year. It was established in 1979 in memory of author
Sue Kaufman
Sue Kaufman (August 7, 1926 – June 25, 1977) was an American author best known for the novel ''Diary of a Mad Housewife''.
Biography
Kaufman was born in Long Island, New York. She received her degree from Vassar College in 1947. In 1953, ...
Tom Lorenz
Tom or TOM may refer to:
* Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name)
Characters
* Tom Anderson, a character in ''Beavis and Butt-Head''
* Tom Beck, a character ...
, ''Guys Like Us''
* 1982 -
Ted Mooney
Edward Comstock Mooney (October 19, 1951March 25, 2022) was an American novelist and short story writer. He published four novels: ''Easy Travel to Other Planets'' (1981), ''Traffic and Laughter'' (1990), ''Singing into the Piano'' (1998), and ' ...
, ''
Easy Travel to Other Planets
Easy may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Easy'' (film), a 2003 American romantic comedy film
*''Easy!'', or ''Scialla!'', a 2011 Italian comedy film
* ''Easy'' (TV series), a 2016–2019 American comedy-drama anthology ...
Denis Johnson
Denis Hale Johnson (July 1, 1949 – May 24, 2017) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his debut short story collection, '' Jesus' Son'' (1992). His most successful novel, '' Tree of Smoke'' (2007 ...
Love Medicine
''Love Medicine'' is Louise Erdrich's debut novel, first published in 1984. Erdrich revised and expanded the novel in subsequent 1993 and 2009 editions. The book follows the lives of five interconnected Ojibwe families living on fictional reserv ...
Jeannette Haien Jeanette, Jeannette or Jeanetta may refer to:
* Jeanette (given name), a given name (including a list of people and fictional characters with the name)
Places
* Jeannette, Ontario, Canada
* Jeannette Island, Russia
* Jeannette, Pennsylvania, ...
, ''The All of It''
* 1988 -
Kaye Gibbons
Kaye Gibbons (born May 5, 1960) is an American novelist. Her first novel, '' Ellen Foster'' (1987), received the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Special Citation from the Ernes ...
Francisco Goldman
Francisco Goldman (born 1954) is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, ''Monkey Boy'' (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for F ...
, ''The Long Night of White Chickens''
* 1994 - Emile Capouya, ''In the Sparrow Hills''
* 1995 -
Jim Grimsley
Jim Grimsley (born September 21, 1955) is an American novelist and playwright.
Biography
Born to a rural family in Grifton, North Carolina, Grimsley said of his childhood that "for us in the South, the family is a field where craziness grows l ...
Yellow
Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In ...
''
* 2003 -
Gabe Hudson
Gabe Hudson (12 September 1971 — 23 November 2023) was an American writer. His novel '' Gork, the Teenage Dragon'' was released by Knopf on July 11, 2017.Nell Freudenberger, ''Lucky Girls''
* 2005 -
John Dalton
John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into colour blindness, which he had. Colour b ...
Uzodinma Iweala
Uzodinma Iweala (born November 5) is a Nigerian-American author and medical doctor. His debut novel, ''Beasts of No Nation'', is a formation of his thesis work (in creative writing) at Harvard. It depicts a child soldier in an unnamed African ...
, ''
Beasts of No Nation
''Beasts of No Nation'' is a 2005 novel by the Nigerian-American author Uzodinma Iweala, that takes its title from Fela Kuti's 1989 album of the same name. The book won the 2005 Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was adapted as a movi ...
Frances Hwang
Frances is a French and English given name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'free one.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from the F ...
, ''Transparency''
* 2009 -
Charles Bock
Charles Bock (born 1969) is an American writer whose debut 2008 novel '' Beautiful Children'' (published by Random House) was selected by ''The New York Times'' as a Notable Book of the Year for 2008, and won the 2009 Sue Kaufman Prize for Firs ...
, ''
Beautiful Children
''Beautiful Children: A Novel'' is the first novel by author Charles Bock. The novel was awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction in 2009 and was selected as a 100 Notable Books of 2008 by ''The New York Times''.
Plot
''Beautiful Children' ...
Brando Skyhorse
Brando Skyhorse (born Brandon Kelly Ulloa) is an American author. He won the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award and the 2011 Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction for his novel ''The Madonnas of Echo Park''.
Life
Skyhorse was born and raised in Echo Park, Ca ...
Manuel Gonzales
Manuel Gonzales (March 3, 1913 – March 31, 1993) was a Spanish-American Disney comics artist. He worked on the ''Mickey Mouse'' comic strip from 1940 to 1981.
Gonzales was born in Cabañas de Sayago, Zamora, Spain and died in Los Angeles.
...
, ''The Miniature Wife''
* 2015 - Michael Carroll, ''Little Reef and Other Stories''
* 2016 -
Kirstin Valdez Quade
Kirstin Valdez Quade is an American writer.
Early life and education
Quade was born to a white father and a Hispanic mother in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her father was a desert geologist and her family lived throughout the Southwestern United Stat ...
Isabella Hammad
Isabella Mariam S. Hammad is a British-Palestinian author. In 2023, she was included on the ''Granta'' Best of Young British Novelists list.
Biography
Hammad grew up in Acton, West London. Her Palestinian father, whose family were from Nablus, ...