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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.

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.

Before Jill Santopolo was officially my editor, she was my editor—calling one day to ask if I might write a story for a planned new HarperTeen anthology. The story, as I understood it, was to focus on a chosen turning point—on a moment of emergence, clarity, vision.

I'd written short stories for years before I'd ever written books; I've always celebrated the form's power. I'm a fan of the deeply distilled, the evocative, the provoked. I favor poetry over plot, emotion over explanation, wisdom over information; the short story seems to favor such things too, or can. Read the exquisite Steven Millhauser piece in this Sunday's NYTBR. Consider his words here:

The short story concentrates on its grain of sand, in the fierce belief that there — right there, in the palm of its hand — lies the universe. It seeks to know that grain of sand the way a lover seeks to know the face of the beloved. It looks for the moment when the grain of sand reveals its true nature. In that moment of mystic expansion, when the macrocosmic flower bursts from the microcosmic seed, the short story feels its power. It becomes bigger than itself. It becomes bigger than the novel. It becomes as big as the universe. Therein lies the immodesty of the short story, its secret aggression. Its method is revelation. Its littleness is the agency of its power.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/books/review/Millhauser-t.html?ref=books

The point is, I said yes. I said yes and loved every moment of immersion in a piece I finally called, "The Longest Distance Between Two Places." Written early last year, it confronts teen suicide and its aftermath—and a decision to live on.

I saw the cover of the anthology today, and I'm really proud to be part of this project. I'm especially touched to see An Na's name here, for seven years ago, while chairing the National Book Awards jury for Young People's Literature, I read her gorgeous "A Step from Heaven;" as a team we nominated it as a top five title. I remember many things from that evening of award giving (Jonathan Franzen's talk, sitting beside Terry Tempest Williams on that stage, my son out in the audience, holding court, and, later, Steve Martin entertaining my child). But I especially remember An Na's graciousness in the moments after the winners had been announced. It made me even prouder that I'd pushed for her inclusion in the top five.

I can't wait to read this book.