The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. 

According to LitHub, “Storytelling methods have changed a lot since the days when O. Henry was alive and writing his own immensely popular stories. What is striking about O. Henry is how he never divulged his deepest secret, which only came to be known after his death: that he had been arrested for embezzlement, fled, and returned to spend more than three years in prison.”

Amor Towles chose this year’s selection, and we see the focus remain on ordinary people.

“The stories introduce characters moving through all the stages of life, their revelations conjured up through vivid imagery—a couple driving through snow in a car with a stranger and their cat, a band of RVs in the desert, a canoe drifting on a lake under the stars, a greenhouse full of soccer balls.”

These stories buttress O. Henry’s beliefs that the unusual is in the ordinary rather than the unexpected.

 

The Winners of the O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction 2024 are:

• Emma Binder
  “Roy“, Gulf Coast

 

• Michele Mari
  “The Soccer Balls of Mr. Kurz,” translated from the Italian by Brian Robert Moore, The New Yorker

 

• Brad Felver
  “Orphans,” Subtropics

 

• Morris Collins
  “The Home Visit,” Subtropics

 

• Jai Chakrabarti
  “The Import,” Ploughshares

 

• Amber Caron
  “Didi,” Electric Literature

 

• Francisco González
  “Serranos,” McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

 

• Caroline Kim
  “Hiding Spot,” New England Review

 

• Katherine D. Stutzman
  “Junior,” Harvard Review

 

Read: How to write a short story that can capture the attention of readers.

 

• Juliana Leite
  “My Good Friend,” translated from the Portuguese by Zoë Perry, The Paris Review

 

• Kate DiCamillo
  “The Castle of Rose Tellin,” Harper’s Magazine

 

• Colin Barrett
  “Rain,” Granta

 

• Robin Romm
  “Marital Problems,” The Sewanee Review

 

• Allegra Goodman
  “The Last Grownup,” The New Yorker

 

• Dave Eggers
  “The Honor of Your Presence,” One Story

 

• E. K. Ota
  “The Paper Artist,” Ploughshares

 

• Tom Crewe
  “The Room-Service Waiter,” Granta

 

• Madeline ffitch
  “Seeing Through Maps,” Harper’s Magazine

 

• Jess Walter
  “The Dark,” Ploughshares

 

• Allegra Hyde
  “Mobilization,” Story

The Best Short Stories 2024: The O. Henry Prize Winners, edited by Amor Towles and Jenny Minton Quigley, will be published in September by Vintage Books.