Larry Dark, a former editor of Anchor's The O. Henry Prize Stories as well as a handful of other collections, has lined up an anonymous donor to sponsor an annual $20,000 prize for the best book-length collection of short fiction as well as $1,000 prizes to two runners-up,--for the Story Prize. "I want to give editors a chance to go to their boss and say, 'This collection may not sell so well but we can buy it and it has a 1-in-50 chance of winning this $20,000 prize,' " Dark explained. Because the focus is on cultivating new stories and new writers, he said he is barring anthologies as well as work that has previously been published in book form. He will allow collections of novellas.
Dark has assembled a powerhouse advisory board that includes Sam Shepard and Binky Urban, plus Atlantic Monthly editor Michael Curtis and Yale University Press's John Donatich. Dark will choose the three-title shortlist himself, and then hand off the list to a panel of rotating judges. Currently the prizes are set up to last for three years, and Dark said he hopes they will continue indefinitely. The inaugural awards will be given out in January 2005 in Manhattan.
