The Missouri Review

Our 1998 Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize winner was Alice Fulton, a widely published author with one book of fiction and several books of poetry to her credit.  Her story, “Happy Dust,” is set in the early twentieth century on a farm governed by Mamie, a pregnant mother of four who is suffering from tuberculosis.  [...]

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The deadline for this year’s Editors’ Prize is only days away. Continuing our look at previous Editors’ Prize winners, the 2000 fiction entry “Coney Island in Winter” by Dana Kinstler Standefer. It’s the story of a woman, who, concerned for her weight, drinks only iced coffee or Tab for lunch. She works [...]

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Our 1997 Editor’s Prize winner, Anne Miano, was also an author who had not been previously published.  “The Oboist” features a narrator who is, to begin with, a violist.  As her skills progressively improve, attention is increasingly focused on her.  As a result, she develops a tremor that makes violin playing impossible.  She stutters and [...]

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Continuing our look at previous Editors’ Prize winners, the 1999 fiction winner was “Tad Lincoln’s Ladder of Dreams” by Emily Pease. The story opens with the imagery of death–a small boy dying in bed, the sound of rain from an opened window. A mother and father experience a great loss, presented to us [...]

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Our 1996 contest winner, “You Think I Care,” by Deborah Way, is especially exciting because, like our 1994 winner, it was the author’s first publication.  Annie, a 15 year old girl walks down a quiet country road on her way to her boyfriend’s house to “do it” for the first time.  A stranger in a [...]

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As the deadline for this year’s Editors’ Prize fast approaches, we continue our look at previous prize winners. The 2002 Editors’ Prize Winner in fiction was “Rationing” by Mary Yukari Waters. It deals with the relationship of Saburo with his father, a survivor of the World War II bombing of Japan. The [...]

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The 1995 Editor’s Prize winner, “The Incredible Appearing Man” by Deborah Galyan, went on to appear in the 1996 edition of Best American Short Stories, and is one of my favorites.  The story opens with the narrator being visited by a man posing as a plumber.  “His panama hat is an odd touch, shadowing dark [...]

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The deadline for this year’s Editors’ Prize is just a few short weeks from now. Continuing our look at previous Editors’ Prize fiction winners, 2003’s “Custodian” by Daniel Coshnear, follows Manny, a janitor at a private high school, who is dealing with his son, a high-school senior, who has suddenly become a father. The son [...]

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Michael Byers won the 1994 Editors’ Prize contest with his story, “Settled on the Cranberry Coast.”  This was Byers’ first publication and the story later appeared in his award winning debut collection, The Coast of Good Intentions.  Ward, aka Frosty, is a recently retired high school history teacher coming to terms with his new life.  [...]

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Continuing our look at previous Editors’ Prize fiction winners, the 2004 winner, “Family Planning” by Valerie Laken, is about Josie and Adrianna, a couple who go to Russia to adopt a child. They face an obstacle that a straight couple would not, in that the Russian government would not permit a lesbian couple to [...]

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The 1993 Editor’s Prize award went to David Borofka for his story, “Epilogue.”  Borofka’s  characters - an adultering priest, a virtuous insurance man, a surgeon with multiple sclerosis, two women who are marriage/family counselors and who are both in disastrous marriages - explore the inevitable chasm between professional identity and life.  In the end, mercy [...]

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The deadline for our 18th Annual Editors’ Prize is less than a month away, and as the submissions start to roll in, we’re finding ourselves a little misty-eyed nostalgic for past editors’ prize winners. Of course, I was not with the Missouri Review for the first 15 years of the contest (so I’m not [...]

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On the sleety evening of Saturday, April 12, we had the pleasure of hosting the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize Reading and Reception. Despite rampant flight cancelations leading into the weekend, Robert, Jude and Otis were all able to join us. We had an incredible pool of submissions for last year’s contest, but our winners’ readings demonstrated the qualities of freshness and heart that won for them these prizes.

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On behalf of this year’s Editors’ Prize contest coordinators Jessica Garratt, Stephanie Carpenter and Darren Pine, we would like to thank everyone who entered this year. The quality of entries in all genres was exceptional, making reading fun but deciding on winners and finalists daunting. Around the office, we had many discussions about [...]

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