Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot"{{Cite web|url=http://www.pushcartprize.com/|title=Welcome to Pushcart Press: Publishers of The Pushcart Prize|website=www.pushcartprize.com}} published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to submit up to six works they have featured.[http://www.pushcartprize.com/nomination.html Nomination Process for the Pushcart Prize]. www.pushcartprize.com. Since 1976, anthologies of selected works have been published on an annual basis. These initiatives are supported and staffed entirely by dedicated volunteers.

Editors

The founding editors were Anaïs Nin, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Newman, Daniel Halpern, Gordon Lish, Harry Smith, Hugh Fox, Ishmael Reed, Joyce Carol Oates, Len Fulton, Leonard Randolph, Leslie Fiedler, Nona Balakian, Paul Bowles, Paul Engle, Ralph Ellison, Reynolds Price, Rhoda Schwartz, Richard Morris, Ted Wilentz, Tom Montag, Bill Henderson{{Cite web|url=http://www.pushcartprize.com/series.html|title=Welcome to Pushcart Press: Publishers of The Pushcart Prize|website=www.pushcartprize.com|access-date=April 26, 2016}} and William Phillips.{{cite news |last1=Lask |first1=Thomas |title=The Making of a Big Book on Little Magazines |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19790107&id=5btfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AOcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2482,1017104 |access-date= July 10, 2014 |work=Lawrence Journal-World |date=January 7, 1979}}

Many guest editors have served this collection over the years. They are listed in each edition that they edited. More than 200 contributing editors make nominations for each edition. They are listed on the masthead.

Winners

Each edition of the Pushcart Prize includes a complete index of presses and writers reprinted in the anthology since 1976. More than 2,000 writers and 600 presses have been selected.

Among the writers who received early recognition in Pushcart Prize anthologies were: Kathy Acker, Steven Barthelme, Rick Bass, Charles Baxter, Bruce Boston, Anne Carson, Raymond Carver, Joshua Clover, Junot Diaz, Andre Dubus, William H. Gass, Suzanne Kamata, Seán Mac Falls, William Monahan, Paul Muldoon, Tim O'Brien, Lance Olsen,{{cite web |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-27241568.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105171057/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-27241568.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 5, 2012 |title=UI Professor honored with Pushcart Prize |work=The Spokesman Review |date=May 31, 1998|access-date=March 4, 2011}} Miha Mazzini,{{cite web |url=http://sloopie72.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/pushcart-2012-miha-mazzini-that-winter-from-ecotone-9-spring-2010/ |title=Pushcart 2012: Miha Mazzini, "That Winter" from Ecotone 9, Spring 2010 |date=22 January 2012 |website=A Just Recompense |access-date=April 24, 2014}} Peter Orner, Kevin Prufer, Kay Ryan, Mona Simpson, Ana Menéndez, Ladette Randolph, Kaveh Akbar and Wells Tower.{{cite news| url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/DDU514SOA5.DTL&feed=rss.entertainment | work=San Francisco Chronicle | first=Francesca | last=Mari | title=Anthology Review: 'The Pushcart Prize XXXIII' | date=January 7, 2011}}

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File:Kaveh Akbar, author, at the 2024 National Book Awards finalist reading 3 (cropped).jpg

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Recognition

The Pushcart Prize anthology has earned national recognition. Kirkus Reviews praised it as "must reading for anyone interested in the present and future of America's arts and letters".{{cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bill-henderson/the-pushcart-prize-xvi/|title=THE PUSHCART PRIZE, XVI: BEST OF THE SMALL PRESSES|website=Kirkus Reviews|date=September 15, 1991|access-date=November 24, 2024}} Pushcart Press was awarded the 1979 Carey Thomas Prize for Publisher of the Year by Publishers Weekly.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/08/archives/publishing-finishing-alexander-hamilton.html|title=Publishing: Finishing Alexander Hamilton|first=Thomas|last=Lask|date=June 8, 1979|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=November 24, 2024}}

The Pushcart Prize series was honored with the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle in 2005,{{Cite web|url=https://www.bookcritics.org/awards/sandrof/|title=National Book Critics Circle: sandrof|website=bookcritics.org|access-date=August 26, 2016}} and the Poets & Writers/Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers award in 2006.{{Cite web|url=http://www.pw.org/about-us/writers_writers_award_and_editors_award|title=Writers for Writers Award, Editor's Award {{!}} Poets and Writers|website=www.pw.org|date=12 February 2008 |access-date=August 26, 2016}}

Pushcart Prize

Editors

Winners

Recognition

References

Further reading