The Iowa Short Fiction Award and the John Simmons Short Fiction Award are annual prizes given to two collections of stories by emerging short fiction writers. Two winning manuscripts are published by The University of Iowa Press. Submissions are open between August 1 and September 30.

Go here to learn more about the awards and submit.

 

Recent Winners

2023
^{Judge: Gish Jen}
Thomas A. Dodson won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for No Use Pretending.

 

 

2022
^{Judge: Anthony Marra}
A. J. Bermudez won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for Stories No One Hopes Are About Them. | _{^{[Publisher's Weekly review]}}

Janice Obuchowski won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award
for The Woods.

 

2021
^{Judge: Brandon Taylor}
Blake Sanz won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for The Boundaries of Their Dwelling. |_{^{[New York Times review]}}

Cara Blue Adams won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award
for You Never Get It Back. | _{^{[New York Times review]}}

 

2020
^{Judge: Tom Drury}
Sari Rosenblatt won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for Father Guards the Sheep.

Eileen O'Leary won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award
for Ancestry.

 

2019
^{Judge: Carmen Maria Machado}
Emily Wortman-Wunder won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for Not a Thing to Comfort You.

Ashley Wurzbacher won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award
for Happy Like This.

 

2018
^{Judge: Rebecca Lee}
Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for The Water Diviner and Other Stories.

Christian Felt won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award
for The Lightning Jar.

 

2017
^{Judge: Andre Dubus III}
Matthew Lansburgh won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for Outside is the Ocean.

Marian Crotty won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award
for What Counts as Love.

 

2016
^{Judge: Bennett Sims}
Robert Oldshue won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for November Storm.

Allegra Hyde won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award
for Of This New World.

 

2015
^{Judge: Karen Russell}
Edward Hamlin won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for Night in Erg Chebbi and Other Stories.

Charles Haverty won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award
for Excommunicados.

 

Previous Winners

2014
^{Judge: Wells Tower}
Heather A. Slomski, The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons

Kathleen Founds, Mystical Creatures Attack!

2013
^{Judge: Julie Orringer}
Tessa Mellas, Lungs Full of Noise

Kate Milliken, If I'd Known You Were Coming

2012
^{Judge: Jim Shepard}
Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

Chad Simpson, Tell Everyone I Said Hi

2011
^{Judge: Yiyun Li}
Will Boast, Power Ballads

Josh Rolnick, Pulp and Paper

2010
^Judge:
Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell, The Company of Heaven: Stories from Haiti

Barbara Hamby, Lester Higata's 20th Century

2009
^Judge:
Kathryn Ma, All That Work and Still No Boys

Jennine Capó Crucet, How to Leave Hialeah: Stories from the Heart of Miami

2008
^Judge:
Glen Pourciau, Invite

Molly McNett, One Dog Happy

2007
^Judge:
Don Waters, Desert Gothic

Lee Montgomery, Whose World Is This?

2006
^Judge:
Jim Tomlinson, Things Kept, Things Left Behind

Kevin Moffett, Permanent Visitors

2005
^Judge:
Doug Trevor, The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space

Anthony Varallo, This Day in History

2004
^Judge:
Janet Desaulniers, What You've Been Missing

Merrill Feitell, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes

2003
^Judge:
Ryan Harty, Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona

Beth Helms, American Wives

2002
^Judge:
Jennifer S. Davis, Her Kind of Want

Laura Valeri, The Kind of Things Saints Do

2001
^Judge:
Sohrab Homi Fracis, Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America

Donald Anderson, Fire Road

2000
^{Judge: Elizabeth McCracken}
John McNally, Troublemakers

Elizabeth Oness, Articles of Faith

1999
^{Judge: Marilynne Robinson}
Nancy Reisman, House Fires

Thisbe Nissen, Out of the Girls' Room and into the Night

1998
^{Judge: Stuart Dybek}
Mark Brazaitis, The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala

Kathryn Chetkovich, Friendly Fire

1997
^{Judge: Ann Beattie}
Jim Henry, Thank You for Being Concerned and Sensitive

Lisa Lenzo, Within the Lighted City

1996
^{Judge: Oscar Hijuelos}
David Borofka, Hints of His Mortality

Don Zancanella, Western Electric

1995
^{Judge: Ethan Canin}
Tereze Glück, May You Live in Interesting Times

Charles Wyatt, Listening to Mozart

1994
^{Judge: Joy Williams}
Rod Val Moore, Igloo Among Palms

Susan Onthank Mates, The Good Doctor

1993
^{Judge: Francine Prose}
Renee Manfredi, Where Love Leaves Us

Lex Williford, Macauley's Thumb

Ann Harleman, Happiness

1992
^{Judge: James Salter}
Elizabeth Searle, My Body to You

Enid Shomer, Imaginary Men

1991
^{Judge: Marilynne Robinson}
Sondra Spatt Olsen, Traps

Elizabeth Harris, The Ant Generator

1990
^{Judge: Jayne Anne Phillips}
Marly Swick, A Hole in the Language

1989
^{Judge: Gail Godwin}
Starkey Flythe, Jr., Lent: The Slow Fast

Miles Wilson, Line of Fall

1988
^{Judge: Robert Stone}
Sharon Dilworth, The Long White

Michael Pritchett, The Venus Tree

1987
^{Judge: Alison Lurie}
Abby Frucht, Fruit of the Month

Lucia Nevai, Star Game

1986
^{Judge: Tobias Wolff}
Dan O'Brien, Eminent Domain

Russell Working, Resurrectionists

1985
^{Judge: Tim O'Brien}
Robert Boswell, Dancing in the Movies

1984
^{Judge: Frederick Busch}
Susan M. Dodd, Old Wives' Tales

1983
^{Judge: Alice Adams}
Ivy Goodman, Heart Failure

1982
^{Judge: Raymond Carver}
Dianne Benedict, Shiny Objects

1981
^{Judge: Doris Grumbach}
Annabel Thomas, The Phototropic Woman

1980
^{Judge: Francine du Plessix Gray}
James Fetler, Impossible Appetites

1979
^{Judge: John Gardner}
Mary Hedin, Fly Away Home

1978
^{Judge: Stanley Elkin}
Lon Otto, A Nest of Hooks

1977
^{Judge: Leonard Michaels}
Pat Carr, The Women in the Mirror

1976
^{Judge: Donald Barthelme}
C. E. Poverman, The Black Velvet Girl

1975
^{Judge: George P. Garrett}
Barry Targan, Harry Belten and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto

1974
^{Judge: William H. Gass}
Natalie L. M. Petesch, After the First Death There Is No Other

1973
^{Judge: John Hawkes}
H. E. Francis, The Itinerary of Beggars

1972
^{Judge: Joyce Carol Oates}
Jack Cady, The Burning and Other Stories

1971
^{Judge: George P. Elliott}
Philip F. O'Connor, Old Morals, Small Continents, Darker Times

1970
^{Judges: Vance Nye Bourjaily and Kurt Vonnegut}
Cyrus Colter, The Beach Umbrella