Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction

The Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction Ploughshares is pleased to present Karl Taro Greenfeld with the second annual Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction for his short story, “Strawberries,” which appeared in the Winter 2012-2013 issue of Ploughshares, edited by Ladette Randolph and John Skoyles. The $1,000 award, given by acclaimed writer and Ploughshares advisory editor Alice Hoffman, honors the best piece of fiction published in the journal during the previous year.

About Karl Taro Greenfeld

Karl Taro Greenfeld is the author of six books, most recently the novel Triburbia (Harper), published in 2012. His fiction has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, One Story, The Best American Short Stories, and PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.

About “Strawberries,” Greenfeld writes, “I start stories with an image or feeling in mind—in this case, the dishes with swastikas on the bottom and the strange bar in Liège—and then start writing and see if I get anywhere. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t, and very often I can’t tell which is which. I wrote this story a couple years ago and then put it away because I didn’t think it worked. I took it out after two years and looked at it again and thought it was pretty good, so I sent it out. Then something happened that never happens: a few very good journals all said they wanted it. I have always wanted to publish a story in Ploughshares, so here it ended up.”