Cohen Awards (Ploughshares)


From 1986 through 2010, the Cohen Awards honored the best short story and poem published in the literary journal Ploughshares. The awards were sponsored by longtime Ploughshares patrons Denise and Mel Cohen. Finalists were nominated by staff editors, and the winners were selected by the advisory editors. Each winner received a cash prize of $600. The journal has since replaced the award with the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction.

Past winners

YearPoetryfictionNonfiction
1986Tom Sleigh, Hope, Winter 1984Gerald Duff, Fire Ants, Winter 1984Domenic Stansberry, John Gardner: The Return Home, Fall 1984
1987Al Young, from 22 Moon Poems, Fall 1986Mona Simpson, Lonnie Tishman, Spring 1986Phillip Lopate, Against Joie de Vivre, Spring 1986
1988Carol Frost, In Scarecrow's Garden, Spring 1987Linda Bamber, The Time-to-Teach-Jane-Eyre-Again Blues, Fall 1987Gerald Shapiro, Evan S. Connell: A Profile, Fall 1986
1989Dennis Sampson, The Commandment, Winter 1988Josip Novakovich, The Apple, Fall 1988Richard Yates, R.V. Cassill's Clem Anderson, Fall 1988
1990Patricia Traxler, from The Widow's Words, Winter 1989
Michael Ryan, A Burglary, Spring 1989
Christopher Tilghman, In a Father's Place, Fall 1989James Carroll, The Virtue of Writing, Fall 1989
1991Susan Mitchell, Night Music, Winter 1990-91Carol Roh-Spaulding, Waiting for Mr. Kim, Fall 1990William Kittredge, from Hole in the Sky, Winter 1990-91
1992Tess Gallagher, from The Valentine Elegies, Spring 1991
Richard McCann, Nights of 1990, Winter 1991-92
Eileen Pollack, Neversink, Fall 1991Dan Wakefield, Lion: A Memoir of Mark Van Doren, Fall 1991
1993Richard Garcia, In the Year 1946, Spring 1992Ron Carlson, Blazo, Spring 1992Debra Spark, The Lure of the West, Spring 1992
1994Cleopatra Mathis, The Story, Winter 1993-94Fred Leebron, Lovelock, Fall 1993-
1995Mary Ruefle, Glory, Winter 1994-95Marshall N. Klimasewiski, Snowfield, Spring 1994Charles Baxter, Dysfunctional Narratives, Fall 1994
1996Louise Glück, Penelope's Stubbornness, Winter 1995-96Janet Desaulniers, After Rosa Parks, Winter 1995-96
1997Campbell McGrath, Praia dos Orixas, Winter 1996-97Andrew Sean Greer, Come Live with Me and Be My Love, Fall 1996
1998Maxine Swann, Flower Children, Fall 1997Mark Doty, Mercy on Broadway, Spring 1997
1999Herman Fong, Grandfather's Alphabet, Spring 1998Chris Adrian, The Sum of Our Parts, Winter 1998-99
2000Jonah Winter, Sestina: Bob, Spring 1999Judith Grossman, How Aliens Think, Spring 1999
2001Adrian C. Louis, This is the Time of Grasshoppers and All That I See is Dying, Winter 2000Elizabeth Graver, The Mourning Door, Fall 2000
2002Caroline Finkelstein, Conjecture Number One Thousand, Fall 2001Julie Orringer, Pilgrims, Spring 2001
2003Scott Withiam, Walk Right In, Spring 2002Joan Silber, The High Road, Fall 2002
2004Jane Mead, Was Light, Spring 2003Rebecca Soppe, The Pantyhose Man, Winter 2003-04
2005Daisy Fried, Shooting Kinesha, Spring 2004Xu Xi, Famine, Winter 2004-05
2006R. T. Smith, Dar He, Spring 2005Laura Kasischke, If a Stranger Approaches You about Carrying a Foreign Object with You onto the Plane..., Fall 2005
2007Victoria Chang, Proof, Spring 2006Joan Wickersham, The Woodwork, Fall 2006
2008Jennifer Grotz, The Life and Times of George Van Den Heuvel, Winter 2007-08Bret Anthony Johnston, Republican, Fall 2007
2009Tarfia Faizullah, from Interview with a Birangona, Winter 2008-09Steven Schwartz, Bless Everybody, Fall 2008
2010Adrian Blevins, The Waning, Winter 2009-10Andria Nacina Cole, Leaving Women, Spring 2009