Top 1 — O. Henry Awards
“Widely regarded as the nation’s most prestigious awards for short fiction.” The Atlantic Monthly
Naming after the famous American short story author O. Henry (who is featured in 10 Greatest Short Story Author of All Time ), this annual award has long been established since 1918, and the first award was presented in 1919.The award was funded by a group of people known as Society of Arts and Sciences as “a monument to O. Henry’s genius.” Annually, twenty best English short stories are selected among thousands in literary magazines (only print editions are considered) across the world and published as a collection of best short stories of the year under the title “The O. Henry Prize Stories”.
The collection is published by Random House on a yearly basis. The awards have been given to many famous authors including William Faulkner, a Nobel Prize Laureate in 1949, for his short stories “Barn Burning” in Harper’s Magazine in 1939 and “A Courtship” in The Sewanee Review in 1949. Flannery O’ Connor, Stephen King, and Woody Allen are also among the awards winners.
Top 2 — Hugo Awards for Best Short Story
Hugo Awards is, of course, not a new name in the literary world. Having been introduced since 1955, the award has been given out annually, except in the year of 1957. The award is only open to science fiction or fantasy short stories of less than 7,500 words.
The nominees and winners of Hugo Awards are selected by supporting or attending members of Worldcon (World Science Fiction Convention), which is usually held around Labor Day in a different city each year.
Harlan Ellison, a prolific American writer, has won Hugo Awards for Best Short Story for four times, holding the current highest record. Those who have won for three times are Larry Niven, Mike Resnick, Michael Swanwick, Arthur C. Clarke, and Connie Willis. And, sadly, Michael A. Burstein had been nominated around seven times for the award but never once won. But, well, at least he holds the record of the highest number of nomination for the award. (Who says he is terrible!)
Top 3 — The Age Short Story Award
Well, it is an award but in competition form. Originally known as The Age-Tabloid Story Awards, the award had run in conjunction with Tabloid Story until 1984. And ever since 1984, the name of the award had been changed to the current name as now the competition is held in conjunction with The Age.
The basic guideline for this annual award-competition is that any entry must be unpublished short story with less than 3,000 words. Three prizes are awarded and the winning short stories are published in The Age (print and online edition). The inaugural award had been won by Harris Smart.
Top 4 — Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction
Naming after the famous short story writer Flannery O’ Connor (who is featured in 10 Greatest Short Story Author of All Time ), the award has been in existence since 1983. For decades, the award has been constantly encouraging young writers to pick up their pens and write short stories. How? By attracting the attention of readers and publishers to short stories written by young, new authors . Hence, it is common to stumble upon new short story writers in the list of the award winners.
So how does this award work? The award is annually awarded to two winners for a collection of short stories or a novella. The winning authors will each receive 1000 USD cash reward and the authors’ collections of short stories will later be published under a standard contract. The award is held by University of Georgia Press. Sometimes, more than two authors are selected for the award.
The inaugural awards were respectively given out to David Walton for his ‘Evening Out’ and Leigh Allison Wilson for her ‘From the Bottom Up’. The winners for 2014 are Karin Lin-Greenberg (Faulty Prediction) and Monica McFawn (Bright Shards of Someplace Else).
Top 5 — BBC National Short Story Award
This is rather a newly-established award in comparison with the ones listed above. With the sponsor of BBC Radio 4 and Prospect magazine, this award was founded in 2005 by the NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts). The title of the award had been changed from without ‘BBC’ to with ‘BBC’ ever since 2008 to reflect its sponsor.
The award is usually open to British authors only, except in 2012 when the award was open to an international level in celebration with the 2012 Summer Olympic which was hosted in London. Award winners are awarded with 15,000 sterling pound for a single short story. The inaugural award was given to James Lasdun for his short story ‘An Anxious Man’.
Ministry Of Short Story 