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The Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction

  • Dec 8, 2025
  • 2 min read

The Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction has become a key marker of the short stories that define Ploughshares’ recent years, offering a focused look at the kind of narrative work that rises to the top of a competitive editorial slate. Established in 2018, the prize highlights stories published during the previous cycle and has consistently surfaced writers whose fiction anchors books, wins national awards, or signals a shift in their craft.


The Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction recognizes the short story from the previous publication cycle that stands out for its authority on the page and its clarity of purpose. Supported by the Ashley Leigh Bourne Memorial Fund and established in 2018 through the generosity of Hunter C. Bourne III, the prize awards $2,500 and appears each summer alongside a brief profile of the winning author. As with other editorially selected honors at Ploughshares, the prize is not open to submissions; every story published from the prior summer issue through the current spring issue is considered.


Since its inception, the prize has highlighted writers working at various points in their careers, unified less by style than by the steadiness of their storytelling. Ramona Ausubel’s “Perfect Numbers,” the 2025 winner, blends precision and imagination in ways consistent with her earlier books. Andre Dubus III’s “Gary’s Way,” selected the year before, extended the concerns that have shaped his fiction and memoir over several decades. Earlier recipients include E. K. Ota for “The Paper Artist,” Christie Hodgen for “Bush v. Gore,” Vincent Yu for “You Just Make Me So Happy,” Kiley Reid for “George Washington’s Teeth,” and Belle Boggs for “In the Shadow of Man.” Each piece illustrates the range of fiction that moves through the journal: work by established writers, newer voices, and authors whose stories mark a shift or deepening in their craft.


The prize adds a second annual marker to Ploughshares’ record of distinctive short fiction, complementing the Alice Hoffman Prize while drawing from a different publication window. Together, the awards form a detailed archive of stories that reflect the journal’s editorial priorities and point toward the work that often later appears in books, anthologies, and national conversations about contemporary fiction.





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