The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" [1] published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate [2] up to 6 works they have featured. Anthologies of the selected works have been published annually since 1976. Some of the winners are nominated from this List of literary magazines.
The founding editors are Anaïs Nin, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Newman, Daniel Halpern, Gordon Lish, Harry Smith, Hugh Fox, Ishmael Reed, Joyce Carol Oates, Len Fulton, Leonard Randolph, Leslie Fiedler, Nona Balakian, Paul Bowles, Paul Engle, Ralph Ellison, Reynolds Price, Rhoda Schwartz, Richard Morris, Ted Wilentz, Tom Montag, and William Phillips.
Among the writers who received early recognition in Pushcart Prize Anthologies were: Kathy Acker, Steven Barthelme, Rick Bass, Charles Baxter, Bruce Boston, Raymond Carver, Joshua Clover, Junot Diaz, Andre Dubus, William H. Gass, Seán Mac Falls, William Monahan, Paul Muldoon, Joyce Carol Oates, Tim O'Brien, Lance Olsen, [3] Peter Orner, Kevin Prufer, Kay Ryan, Mona Simpson, Ana Menéndez, and Wells Tower. [4]