The L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize has announced this year’s longlist. The $25,000 prize—one of the largest literary awards in the United States—recognizes exceptional fiction published in the previous year.
Since 2016, Texas State University’s Department of English has administered the award in celebration of the Clarks’ lifelong contributions to, and love for, literature and the arts. In nine years, Clark prize-winning books and authors have gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critic Circle’s John Leonard Prize, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and more. Recent winners have included Isabella Hammad, Jamal Jan Kochai, Percival Everett, Raven Leilani, Chia-Chia Lin, Rebecca Makkai, Daniel Alarcón, Jim Shepard and Colson Whitehead.
The books on this year’s longlist—12 great works of fiction published in 2024—were nominated by a panel of distinguished authors and critics. They are:
- Ghostroots: Stories by ‘Pemi Aguda
- The Most by Jessica Anthony
- Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino
- Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis
- Goldenseal by Maria Hummel
- I'll Give You a Reason: Stories by Annell López
- Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu
- Blood in the Cut by Alejandro Nodarse
- Bear by Julia Phillips
- Fire Exit by Morgan Talty
- Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
- Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
From these 12 books, a shortlist of four will be carefully selected by TXST’s Clark Prize committee. This year’s final judge, O. Henry Award-winning writer Kevin Brockmeier, will then choose the winner from the shortlist. The winning author will be invited to attend the Clark Prize ceremony and reading in April 2026 at The Wittliff Collections at TXST, home to the archives of Sandra Cisneros, Sam Shepherd and more.
About the L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Literary Endowment
L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark donated their home and other property to TXST in 2009 to create an endowment to support writers-in-residence. The Clark Literary Endowment funds the annual L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize, which is among the most generous fiction prizes in the country. It also funds a writers-in-residence program that offers one-year residencies to graduates of the TXST MFA program at the Clarks’ historic home on Main Street in Smithville, 55 miles east of TXST’s San Marcos campus. The Department of English and MFA Program in Creative Writing within the College of Liberal Arts sponsor the writers-in-residence program. The endowment also funds numerous scholarships for TXST MFA students.
For more information, visit www.english.txst.edu/about/clark/fiction-prize.html.
