The Best Short Stories 2025: The O. Henry Prize Winners

The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring prize-winning stories by a diverse and exciting array of writers, including Wendell Berry, Alice Hoffman, Dave Eggers, Ling Ma, Lori Ostlund, and Anthony Marra.

Continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge literary excellence, this year’s edition contains twenty prizewinning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year. Guest editor Edward P. Jones has brought his own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Jones, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.

THE WINNING STORIES

＂The Stackpole Legend,＂ Wendell Berry
＂The Arrow,＂ Gina Chung
＂That Girl,＂ Addie Citchens
＂The Pleasure of a Working Life,＂ Michael Deagler
＂Blackbirds,＂ Lindsey Drager
＂Hearing Aids,＂ Clyde Edgerton
＂Sanrevelle,＂ Dave Eggers
＂Stump of the World,＂ Madeline ffitch
＂Shotgun Calypso,＂ Indya Finch
＂City Girl,＂ Alice Hoffman
＂Sickled,＂ Jane Kalu
＂The Spit of Him,＂ Thomas Korsgaard, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken
＂Winner,＂ Ling Ma
＂Countdown,＂ Anthony Marra
＂Just Another Family,＂ Lori Ostlund
＂Mornings at the Ministry,＂ Ehsaneh Sadr
＂Rosaura at Dawn,＂ Daniel Saldaña París, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
＂Three Niles,＂ Zak Salih
＂Strange Fruit,＂ Yah Yah Scholfield
＂Miracle in Lagos Traffic,＂ Chika Unigwe

EDWARD P. JONES is the author of two story collections, All Aunt Hagar’s Children and Lost in the City, which was awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Lannan Literary Award and was nominated for the National Book Award. His novel, The Known World, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, The International Dublin Literary Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. He has been awarded a McArthur Fellowship and a PEN/Malamud Award for the excellence in the art of the short story. He is a professor of English at George Washington University.

JENNY MINTON QUIGLEY is the author of a memoir, The Early Birds, and editor of the anthology Lolita in the Afterlife. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her husband, sons, and dogs.