2024 Winner: Pedro Ponce
Pedro Ponce is the author of The Devil and the Dairy Princess (Indiana University Press, 2021), winner of the Don Belton Fiction Prize and finalist for the 2021 Big Other Book Award for Fiction. Ponce is also the author of Stories After Goya, Alien Autopsy, and Superstitions of Apartment Life. His short stories and flash fiction have appeared in Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Witness, and other journals. His work has also been featured in anthologies such as The Best Small Fictions 2019, New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, and Boundaries Without: The Calumet Editions 2017 Anthology of Speculative Fiction. His work has been recognized with a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and with residencies at Ragdale, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. He teaches writing and literary studies at St. Lawrence University, where he was recently appointed to the William L. Fox Professorship in Public Health. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and X.
The consensus of the committee was very strong that his fiction exemplifies the spirit of serious play and innovative practice that the award seeks to encourage. Pedro is also a devoted teacher of creative writing and literature. He plans to use the award to take a semester off to work on a new book.
The 2nd Annual Tom La Farge Award Ceremony was held in New York City on October 11th, 2024. Watch a recording of the event.
2023 Award Winner: George Salis
George Salis is the author of the novel Sea Above, Sun Below, which was translated into Russian in 2023. He's also the editor of The Collidescope, an online publication that celebrates innovative and neglected literature. His fiction is featured in The Dark, Golden Handcuffs Review, Sci Phi Journal, Three Crows Magazine, and elsewhere. His criticism has appeared in Isacoustic, Atticus Review, and The Tishman Review, and his science article on the mechanics of natural evil was featured in Skeptic. After a decade, he has finished writing a maximalist novel titled Morphological Echoes. He's now working on a third novel, tentatively titled Silence of the Sirens. He has taught in Bulgaria, China, and Poland. Find him on Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, Instagram, and his website here.
The consensus about George Salis’ work and project was very strong, with the entire committee favoring the choice. Although we received many interesting proposals, George's was the one that seemed most firmly grounded in Tom's aesthetic values: a love of language, serious play, erudition and innovative style.
The first award celebration was held in New York City on June 9, 2023. You can watch a recording of the event here.