Announcing the Winner of the 2022 Short Story Collection Prize

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce the winner of the 2022 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize: Zan by Suzi Ehtesham-Zadeh. In addition to publication by Dzanc in Spring 2024, the prize also comes with a $2,500 advance.

“Suzi Ehtesham-Zadeh’s stories are a stunning glimpse into the wide-ranging experiences, lives, and viewpoints of the women of Iran. In sharp and gorgeous prose, these stories encompass vast and varied perspectives, yet all tackle the idea of our commonalities and how these women rise and bloom into their own complex, resilient selves,” said Dan Wickett, Dzanc’s co-founder and founder of the Emerging Writers Network.

Ehtesham-Zadeh said of the collection, “Taken together, the stories in Zan present a portrait of the Iranian woman as resourceful, resilient, determined, and unstoppable. This portrait is drawn from my own experiences as part of a large, woman-heavy Iranian family and inspired by the many powerful Iranian women I know. The collection was completed before the current uprising began in Iran, but it is a tribute to the courageous women who are part of that movement.”

Ehtesham-Zadeh grew up in Tehran during the final years of the Shah’s regime, moved to the United States to attend university, returned to Iran at the dawn of the Islamic Revolution, and later resided for several years in Spain. While she has spent significant chunks of her life in Europe and Iran, her permanent home is a mini-farm she owns in Woodstock, Georgia. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Stanford University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Fiction International, Glassworks Magazine, Quiddity International Literary Journal, and elsewhere.

The Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize was created to recognize daring, original, and innovative writing. Dzanc Books is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization not only committed to producing quality literary works but providing creative writing instruction in public schools through the Dzanc Writers-in-Residence program and offering low-cost workshops for aspiring authors. Dzanc Books also runs annual prizes for the novel and nonfiction. For more information on the house, upcoming titles, and other prize winners, please visit www.dzancbooks.org.