Continuing its commitment to literature, Amazon has established its third literary award: the PEN/Amazon.com Short Story Award for Unpublished Writers. The winning story will be published on the Amazon site and in the Boston Book Review, and the author will receive a $10,000 cash grant.
The judges for the first award will be literary luminaries David Guterson, Jamaica Kincaid, and Sherman Alexie. The first winner will be honored at the annual PEN literary awards 15 May in New York.
"We wanted to find a way to recognize emerging authors and give those writers a chance to reach a wider audience," said Mary Park, Awards and Independent/University Press editor at Amazon. This new award is not only the most lucrative ever given for a short story, but its placement on Amazon's site will give one lucky author exposure to millions of people.
Amazon launched its literary awards in 1997 with John Updike's The Greatest Tale Ever Told contest, which received over 400,000 entries.
Based on those numbers, Amazon expects to be deluged with entries for the new contest. "We're kind of nervous about that. But there's also a very exciting chance we will discover a wonderful new writer who we haven't heard from before," Park said.
