Lydia Davis, Lionel Shriver among O. Henry Prize winners

The O. Henry Prize Stories for 2015 have been announced, all of which will appear in an anthology coming this September. Says O. Henry Prize editor Laura Furman, “Our jurors read the 20 O. Henry Prize Stories in a blind manuscript. Each story appears in the same type and format with no attribution of the magazine that published it or the author’s name. The jurors don’t consult the series editor or one another. Although the jurors write their essays without knowledge of the authors’ names, the names are inserted into the essay later for the sake of clarity.” This year’s jurors were Tessa Hadley, Kristen Iskandrian, and Michael Parker.

The winners:

• Percival Everett — “Finding Billy White Feather,” Virginia Quarterly Review
• Lydia Davis — “The Seals,” The Paris Review
• Lionel Shriver — “Kilifi Creek,” The New Yorker
• Manuel Muñoz — “Happiest Girl in the Whole USA,” Glimmer Train
• Russell Banks — “A Permanent Member of the Family,” Conjunctions
• Dina Nayeri — “A Ride Out of Phrao,” Alaska Quarterly Review
• Emily Ruskovich — “Owl,” One Story
• Becky Hagenston — “The Upside-Down World,” Subtropics
• Lynn Freed — “The Way Things Are Going,” Harper’s
• Brenda Peynado — “The History of Happiness,” Cimarron Review
• Naira Kuzmich — “The Kingsley Drive Chorus,” Salamander
• Emma Torzs— “Word of Mouth,” The Three Penny Review
• Christopher Merkner — “Cabins,” Subtropics
• Molly Antopol — “My Grandmother Tells Me This Story,” Ecotone
• Lynne Sharon Schwartz — “The Golden Rule,” Fifth Wednesday Journal
• Joan Silber — “About My Aunt,” Tin House
• Thomas Pierce — “Ba Baboon,” The New Yorker
• Elizabeth Strout — “Snow Blind,” Virginia Quarterly Review
• Vauhini Vara — “I, Buffalo,” Tin House
• Elizabeth McCracken — “From the Radio,” Zoetrope: All-Story