Tag Archives: Editors’ Prize contest

2002 Editors' Prize Fiction Winner: "Rationing"

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 story examines the relationship of the father and son and how it was affected by the lingering changes in Japanese culture after Hiroshima. See the story at:

http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=1087

For more information on this year’s contest, click the link on our homepage, or got to http://missourireview.com/contest

1995 Editors' Prize Winner

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 glasses.  A blue work shirt and jeans.  Cowboy boots, very tooled.  But the grin is center stage.”  He returns as a radon inspector.  Later, he will be a tree trimmer.  The sexual tension is palpable.  There is a long and hidden history between these two, seventeen years of visits from the Incredible Appearing Man, during which time the narrator marries another man and has a son.  Her marriage is healthy and happy, her husband, kind. The Man, on the other hand, is music and philosophy and passion; he is gone for years at a time and reappears like a spirit sent to lure her back to their origin.  He is her dream and her husband is her life.  The great success of the story lies in the way Galyan captures the compromise that is often inherent in love lived.  Read more at

http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=2091

2003 Editors' Prize Fiction Winner: "Custodian"

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 fathered the child with one of the rich girls who attends the private school, and has moved in with the girl and her mother, and doesn’t want his father coming around because he is worried that he will embarrass him. Meanwhile, Manny is trying to take care of an old friend who is suffering debilitating complications due to ill-management of diabetes. The two stories intersect as Manny tries to give his son a lesson in responsibility. Read the story for yourself at:

http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=71

For more information on this year’s contest, click the link on our homepage, or go to http://missourireview.com/contest

2004 Editors' Prize Fiction Winner–"Family Planning"

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 adopt a Russian child, so they must pretend that Adrianna alone is looking to adopt, and that Josie is just a friend accompanying her. For Josie this is frustrating because she is the one who truly wants to adopt a child, but for financial reasons must let Adrianna take the lead when they go to the orphanage. This leads to a difficult decision for the couple, as Josie begins to realize that she has become a participant in a bizarre shopping trip, where everything comes at a high price. Copy/paste the link below to read the story:

http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=100

For more information on this year’s contest, click the link on our homepage, or got to http://missourireview.com/contest

1993 Editor's Prize Winner

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 is found within this chasm: “Grace caroms around the room with the velocity of a hockey puck.”  Len, the virtuous insurance man, meets Max, the adulterous priest, in a diner.  Len chokes on a piece of sausage and he’s saved not by the priest, not by the doctor, not by either wife, but by an anonymous, vomit-splattered patron who is thought to be nothing more than a vagrant.  Read the story at

http://missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=1981