College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Iowa Short Fiction Award and John Simmons Short Fiction Award
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 JenThomas A. Dodson won the Iowa Short Fiction Award
for No Use Pretending.
2022
Judge: Anthony MarraA. 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 TaylorBlake 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 DrurySari 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 MachadoEmily 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 LeeRuvanee 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 IIIMatthew 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 SimsRobert 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 RussellEdward 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