From Our Staff | November 14, 2006

Each year, The Missouri Review awards the Peden Prize to the author of the “best short story,” as selected by an outside judge. This year, Ed Falco, author of Plato at Scratch Daniel’s, Acid and Wolf Point, picked the Paul Eggers’s story, “This Way Uncle into the Palace,” as the best of the volume year. About the story, Falco wrote, “Eggers’s writing is gorgeous and the story is engaging and, more important than all that, it’s a story I won’t forget because of the way it disturbed me intellectually and emotionally. Stories like that are the reason I read.” Eggers’s story appeared in the first issue of volume 28.

Eggers came to Columbia, Missouri, October 23, to read from his work at a reception hosted by the First National Bank of Columbia. As the Peden Prize winner, he collected a $1,000 check from the First National Bank. While in Columbia, Lania Knight interviewed Eggers and Seth Graves acted as technical editor. Both Lania and Seth serve as interns for The Missouri Review. To listen to the interview, go to our audio page by clicking here.

Eggers finds himself in good company with past winners, including Robb Forman Dew, Joanna Scott, Wally Lamb, Andrea Barrett, Robert Olen Butler and William Gay.