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Author Steven Millhauser has won the $20,000 Story Prize for his short story collection, We Others. The two runners-up, Don DeLillo and Edith Pearlman, were given $5,000 apiece.

Story Prize director Larry Dark had a conversation with the three finalists at the ceremony last night. Dark and Story Prize founder Julie Lindsey chose the finalists, drawing from a pool of among 92 books from 60 different publishers and imprints.

Here’s more from the release: “Millhauser is renowned for both his short stories and novels. He is the author of four previous story collections and seven novels, including Edwin Mullhouse and Martin Dressler: The Life and Times of an American Dreamer, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. His work has been translated into fifteen languages, and his story “Eisenheim the Illusionist” was the basis of the 2006 film The Illusionist.” (Photo via Michael Lionstar)

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Author Steven Millhauser has won the $20,000 Story Prize for his short story collection, We Others. The two runners-up, Don DeLillo and Edith Pearlman, were given $5,000 apiece.

Story Prize director Larry Dark had a conversation with the three finalists at the ceremony last night. Dark and Story Prize founder Julie Lindsey chose the finalists, drawing from a pool of among 92 books from 60 different publishers and imprints.

Here’s more from the release: “Millhauser is renowned for both his short stories and novels. He is the author of four previous story collections and seven novels, including Edwin Mullhouse and Martin Dressler: The Life and Times of an American Dreamer, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. His work has been translated into fifteen languages, and his story “Eisenheim the Illusionist” was the basis of the 2006 film The Illusionist.” (Photo via Michael Lionstar)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Rona Jaffe Foundation has announced the 2011 Writers’ Award winners. Each winner will receive a $25,000 prize.

The six winning writers include Melanie Drane (poetry), Apricot Irving (nonfiction), Fowzia Karimi (fiction), Namwali Serpell (fiction), Merritt Tierce (fiction) and JoAnn Wypijewski (nonfiction).

The award ceremony will take place on September 23rd in New York City. Acclaimed short story writer Edith Pearlman will serve as the evening’s special guest speaker. Past recipients of this award includes Laura Newbern (poetry), Lan Samantha Chang (fiction) and Rachel Aviv (nonfiction).

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Occasionally as readers we encounter short stories that have 'stealth' endings. The stealth tag relates to the USAF B-2 Stealth Bomber, which is designed to fly under any radar surveillance on the way to its destination. Sometimes the trajectory of a story is almost as elusive, and we don't quite know where or how an impact is going to be felt. We may put ourselves on guard not to be too devastated by the culmination of ominous warnings, but if the author can stay under the radar for the best possible moment to break through and deliver the unexpected, a stealth strike can be memorable.

I am currently reading an excellent short stories collection, "Binocular Vision," by Edith Pearlman (2011). A couple of her initial stories had this sort of stealth effect on me. A good opener for a discussion, though, that has long lingered in my mind, is "Million $$$ Baby," by F.X. Toole, included in his story collection Rope Burns. The Oscar Award winning movie of the same name was based on this short story. It was about a young woman who had grown up in a hard-scrabble town in the Ozarks, and was intent on becoming a boxing champion as her way out of a bleak future. Maggie Fitzgerald wins the grudging help of a trainer/manager, Frankie Dunn.