3 Fantastic Women Shortlisted for Their Shorts

I would not want to be the person who has to decide which of the names on the 2014 Frank O'Connor Prize shortlist takes home the prize for the best short story collection. Ready for this? First, the ladies: Lorrie Morre for Bark (which surprises exactly no one), AL Kennedy for All the Rage, and Laura van den Berg for The Isle of Youth. For the men, Ben Marcus picks up a nod for Leaving the Sea, Phil Klay for Redeployment, and Colin Barrett for Young Skins.

The six finalists were picked from a longlist that included both traditional and experimental fiction from names like Rivka Galchen, Sam Lipsyte, Molly Antopol, Mary Akers, Lucy Corin, Nina McConigley, Ben Stroud, and more: translation is they had some insanely impressive company. The full 2014 Frank O'Connor Prize longlist can be found here, and if short stories are your thing, you're going to want to put ostensibly every collection listed here on your must-reads pile.

The award, which has been won by writers including Jhumpa Lahiri, Miranda July, Haruki Murakami, and Edna O'Brien, is a €25,000 prize for a collection of shorts published in English for the first time — and, as you can imagine, it's a pretty prestigious honor. Whom are you rooting for?