Story Prize Award

Tobias Wolff has won the $20,000 Story Prize for his collection Our Story Begins. Runners up were Jhumpa Lahiri for Unaccustomed Earth and Joe Meno for Demons in the Spring. They both receive $5,000. The judges said this about Tobias' work: "The previously uncollected pieces by Wolff in this new collection show an increasingly severe insistence on the most telling and specific detail as the author creates entire worlds, entire life stories, out of eloquent molecules of narrative. The emotional impact of these lapidary stories is specific and powerful. It is this great sense of the human condition, combined with the close detailing of everyday life that makes Tobias Wolff such an exceptional writer."