Established in 1994, the Perkins Prize honors Barbara Perkins and George Perkins, the founders of both The Journal of Narrative Technique and the Society itself. The prize, awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year, consists of $1,000 plus a contribution of $500 toward expenses for the winning author to attend the Narrative Conference where the award will be presented.

The Perkins Prize is conceived as a book prize rather than an author prize. Thus all books on the topic of narrative, whether edited collections, collaboratively written books, or monographs, are eligible to compete. If an edited collection or collaboratively written book is selected, the prize goes to the editor(s) or the collaborators. The winner of the competition for books published in 2016 will be announced at the New York MLA Convention in January 2018, and the prize will be presented at the Narrative Conference in Montréal, Québec, in April 2018.

To nominate books with a copyright date of 2016, please send an email with “Perkins Prize” in the subject line to The Chair of the judging committee:

Brian McHale mchale.11@osu.edu

Publisher, third-party, and self-nominations are all appropriate.  Copies of books must be sent to each of the three judges. Please indicate in the nominating email whether the publisher or the author will send the books. The deadline for nominations and for receipt of books by the judges is June 1, 2017.

Books should be sent by authors or their publishers directly to each of the three members of the judging committee:

Brian McHale
Department of English
The Ohio State University
421 Denney Hall
164 Annie and John Glenn Ave.
Columbus OH 43210
 
Porter Abbott
7271 Gills Pier Rd.
Northport, MI  49670
 
Sue J. Kim
Department of English
UMass Lowell
O’Leary Library 476
61 Wilder Street
Lowell, MA 01854