Last night Pakistani-American debut author Daniyal Mueenuddin won the $20,000 Story Prize for his collection, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. Finalists Victoria Patterson (Drift) and Wells Tower (Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned) will each receive $5,000.
The authors were chosen from among 78 submissions from publishers. GalleyCat was there at the event as the finalists read from their work and Story Prize director Larry Dark interviewed them individually.
In his interview, Mueenuddin (pictured, via) talked about growing up on his family farm in Pakistan (which he now manages). “I was brought up by servants,” he said, but stressed that his experiences on the farm were crucial for his writing. “One of the problems for writers is that they live as writers,” he concluded. “That does not provide very much material.”