Autumn House Press Fiction Prize

Entry Level, the debut short story collection of Wendy Wimmer, selected by Deesha Philyaw as the winner of the 2021 Autumn House Fiction Prize, focuses on an eclectic cast of characters trying to find, assert, or salvage their identities. These fifteen stories center around the experience of being underemployed-whether by circumstance, class, gender, race, or other prevailing factors-and the toll this takes on an individual. Wimmer pushes the boundaries of reality, creating stories that are funny, fantastic, and at times terrifying. Her characters undergo feats of endurance, heartbreak, and loneliness, all while trying to succeed in a world that so often undervalues them. From a young marine biologist suffering from imposter syndrome and a haunting to a bingo caller facing another brutal snowstorm and a creature that may or not be an angel, Wimmer's characters are all confronting an oppressive universe that seemingly operates against them or is, at best, indifferent to them. These stories reflect on the difficulties of modern-day survival and remind us that piecing together a life demands both hope and resilience.

Michael X. Wang's award-winning debut collection of short stories interrogates personal and political events set against the backdrop of China that are both real and perceived, imagined, and speculative. Wang plunges us into the fictional Chinese village of Xinchun and beyond to explore themes of tradition, family, modernity, and immigration in a country grappling with its modern identity. Steeped in a long history of violence and suffering, Further News of Defeat is rich with characters who have known struggle and defeat and who find themselves locked in pivotal moments of Chinese history-such as World War II and the Tiananmen Square massacre-as they face losses of the highest order and still find cause for revival.