Iowa-based short story writer Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky Man: Stories, won the fourth annual Maya Angelou Book Award for Witness: Stories. Brinkley accepted the award via video call before the annual Writers for Readers banquet on November 21. The fundraiser supports the award and free writing classes at the Library taught by University of Missouri-Kansas City graduate students. 

Kaite Stover, the Library’s director of readers’ services, gave Brinkley the news and called the book one of the most moving reads this year.

“Witness: Stories is the first short story collection to win the award,” Stover said. “In a work that questions what it means to be a ‘witness’ to life, as well as ‘witness’ life as it's lived, the reader becomes part of the stories, identifying with and witnessing the characters' experiences.”

Brinkley said, “I’m thrilled. It feels really nice to have the spirit of the collection being recognized. And to have my work anywhere in the proximity of someone like Maya Angelou’s is a true honor.” 

The 10 stories, set in New York City, follow the implications of actions taken and not taken. 

Through a diverse cast of characters – from children to ghosts – Brinkley explores what it means to passively or actively be a part of the life around us. 

A native of the Bronx and Brooklyn, he now teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has published work in The Paris Review, A Public Space, Ploughshares, and The Best American Short Stories, and others. His first collection, A Lucky Man, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Brinkley says it’s important to him to be seen as a short story writer, and he’s happy for the form to be recognized with awards. 

“The genre, to me, is just as important, as artful, as difficult, as writing a novel, even though novels get pride of place normally.” 

Guest judge, author Timothy Schaffert, told the selection committee it was one of his favorite reads of the year and that one story, “Blessed Deliverance,” had moved him to tears. 

Schaffert chose Brinkley’s collection from a shortlist of five; the committee received 150 submissions. Joining Brinkley as finalists were Aisha Abdel Gawad for Between Two Moons, Morgan Talty for Fire Exit, Aube Rey Lescure for River East, River West, and Crystal Hana Kim for The Stone Home.   

The Kansas City Public Library, UMKC, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri State University, and Northwest Missouri State, Truman State, and Southeast Missouri State universities established the award in 2020.   

Named for the acclaimed, Missouri-born memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist, the prize celebrates contemporary writers whose work demonstrates their commitment to social justice. It alternates annually between poetry and fiction, going this year to the author of a work of fiction. 

The award includes a $10,000 stipend, and Brinkley will conduct a book tour of the six Missouri universities that participate in the award. 

Brinkley said, “It is thrilling, a tremendous honor, to receive this award named for Maya Angelou whose work was committed to facing injustice and enduring loss without being defeated, and to what she called ‘deep talk,’ telling beautiful, singular stories that are large and resonant, sounding truths about how we live, how we persist, and how we struggle towards our fullest potential.”