The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories

What does it mean to be included in the O. Henry Prize Stories? How does an author refine their art? We've given the authors of the winning and recommended stories free rein to share their thoughts on these questions and others, and the result is a rare treat.

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		Yiyun Li O. Henry Award-winning Author

		It is a great honor to be included in The O. Henry Prize Stories. When I first came to the U.S. I used to check out every year's O. Henry anthology from the local public library, and so I am very pleased that I made it to the prize. (author photo © Randi Lynn Beach)


	I think the best stories always have many layers, and with the rough draft I feel that I am just putting everything on the page, and when I revise I like to see if I could add a stroke here and there, to make the story less flat. I love writing short stories. They feel closer to life--that you meet people randomly and then you part ways with them, but perhaps ten years down the line you remember a gesture from this person, a smile from another. I think the characters in my stories are oftentimes people whom I don't live with (in comparison to a longer form, which one does have to live with the characters for a few years or even longer) but whom I am curious about. Oftentimes it is the mystery that makes me write the story. A little something I read in the newspaper, or an overheard tale of someone I don't know. Why does this man choose to live with his mother all his life? Why does that old woman refuse to talk to her caretaker?


	Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, China, and came to the United States in 1996. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Zoetrope, Tin House, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank OÕConnor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and other awards and prizes. Granta recently named her one of the best American novelists under 35, and she has received awards and grants from the Whiting Foundation and the Lannan Foundation. She teaches at Mills College and lives in the Bay Area.


	I am working on a novel for which I have been living with these characters for quite a few years now. I am also working on more stories as ideas occur to me.


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