Author George Saunders has won the Story Prize, and its $20,000 purse, for his short story collection Tenth of December.
Saunders received the award at a ceremony at The New School in New York this week. Stephen Ennis, Director of the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin; author Antonya Nelson, and Rob Spillman, Editor of literary magazine Tin House judged the competition.
This was the second time what Saunders was nominated for the award. His last collection, In Persuasion Nation was a finalist for the prize in 2007. Here is more from the press release:
Ten must surely be Mr. Saunders’ lucky number: He is the tenth winner of The Story Prize for a collection of ten stories called Tenth of December, that in 2013 spent ten consecutive weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list for hardcover books. The book reached as high as no. 2 on that list, and the paperback edition has been on the trade fiction list for six weeks now.