For a number of decades, publishing has been dominated by commercial fiction, and less popular and hence less profitable literary fiction has little chance of being noticed by reviewers or placed on bookstore shelves.  New books are given about three months in front of judges and audiences. Those that don’t make it immediately are tossed in the remaindered bin. A deep pity, as literary fiction is slow-growing and takes time to find its audience. No one in the literary fiction community denies this, and yet there are no awards for the best five-year-old novel; no reviewers interested in what came out last year. To help remedy this situation, Dactyl Foundation has created this review dedicated solely to literary fiction and is offering a $1000 award to eligible authors.

Literary fiction is writing that strives to keep readers in a state of awareness of the process of meaning-making by putting language in the foreground. Literary writing is conversant with the literature of the past and questions the notion of narrative itself, as it questions the assumptions of the some of the dominant narratives of society. In contrast, “general fiction” and “genre fiction” tend to affirm stereotypes and prevailing narratives. General fiction is about the story.  Literary fiction is about how a story is told.

In order for a work to be considered for the award, a published literary fiction author must write a review of the work and submit it to Dactyl Review. (Instructions for submitting reviews can be found here.) Once a review has been submitted and accepted, the author or publisher must write to  info (at) dactyl (dot) org  to accept the nomination in order to be considered.

All works eligible for the award must be published in some form, whether through a traditional publishing house, self-published, print-on-demand, or e-book. The work must be available for purchase through a bookstore, either as new or as used. No single short stories or collections by multiple authors are eligible for consideration. Short stories must appear in a collection (with a minimum of about 100 pages). There is no entry fee. Authors do not have to send copies of their books to be judged. Dactyl Foundation purchases copies of all books entered in the competition.

Award Recipients:

2019 Seven Cries of Delight by Tom Newton (Recital Publishing, 170 pages)

“…surrealist literature, far from being strange, may be considered the everyday sort of reality for the most fundamental part of our animal existence.”

2018 Dactyl Review received only four entries for this year, so we’ve decided to add these entries to next year’s list.

2017 The Tale of the Bastard Feverfew: One Man’s Journey into the Land of the Dead by U. R. Bowie (Ogee Zakamora, 342 pages)

“I like a book that’s unafraid of big themes, and this one has a beauty: mortality itself, the reality waiting behind our illusions of security.”

In 2016 we had all together ten reviews posted by four reviewers. None of the authors whose books were favorably reviewed replied to Dactyl Review to accept the nomination, and so, unfortunately, we are not able to reward the prize this year.

2015 Sea of Hooks by Lindsay Hill (McPherson & Co, 348 pages)

“The way sections move from multiple perspectives, dreamtime, real-time, then meld together with such cohesive and penetrating storytelling, is a testament to the author’s insightful eye for detail and character…”

2014 Hush Now, Don’t Explain by Dennis Must (Coffeetown Press, 287 pages)

“…a unique American novel, written in the language of the heartland before Jesus became a pawn in the political battle for the American soul. It is written in a subdued, subtle, understated lyrical style.”

2013 The Double Life of Alfred Buber  by David Schmahmann (Permanent, 197 pages)

Who is Alfred Buber? In starkest terms, he is a respected Boston lawyer who falls in love with a Thai sex worker named Nok. Not surprisingly, they do not live happily ever after. This is not a book of neat resolutions….

2013 Cocoa Almond Darling by Jeffra Hays (Kindle, 126 pages).

… a rather intense, deliberately-paced story about a tailor Mr. Benton, his assistant Milly, and their daughter Nicky. The main action seems to be set in the 1960s, give or take a decade, and the story is told entirely from Milly’s perspective. The novel’s limited first-person narration is masterfully rendered…. 

2012 no award given due to lack of entries.

2011 no award given due to insufficient qualifying entries. Pedro Ponce’s Alien Autopsy: Stories, a micro-fiction collection (Cow Heavy Books, 55 pages), received honorable mention.

2010 Shadowplay by Norman Lock (Ellipsis Press, 137 pages).

Lock’s novella is a dense fable, mixing magic realism with self-reflexivity. The entire story is given to us in miniature at the beginning, such that the novella itself is really a constant retelling–a folding and refolding–rather than an unfolding.

Judging Process

The judging process is pretty much decided by the reviewers who nominate works by submitting reviews.  The strength of the review is first consideration. (A “good” review really analyzes the language and/or overall vision of the book and is of reasonable length. Also see “how to write a book review” on the site.) The strength of the reviewer’s other contributions is also considered, e.g. if the reviewer consistently writes strong reviews and receives a lot of positive feedback from the community, then his/her nominations are given priority. If the reviewer has previously won the Dactyl Award, his/her nominations are given top priority in the final selection.

This selection process leaves a fairly narrow field, from which Dactyl Review‘s editor, VN Alexander, chooses the winner.  In coming years, we hope to get previous award winners to volunteer to make the final judgements.  Although it is not a requirement, we ask all winning authors to nominate other authors by submitting at least one review to Dactyl Review. In this way all winners of the award will be participating in the judging process for future competitions.

We do not have a list of criteria, or metric system by which books are judged. Some years we may not give an award if there have not been sufficient qualifying entries. We will only pick one award recipient each year, but all non-winning entries can be reconsidered at any other time. Reconsideration of previously entered works will be an important aspect of the Dactyl Award insofar as it will allow the “best” books to be chosen, not just the best books of a particular year, and it will allow previously entered books to be judged according to different tastes when different final judges are making the decisions. In short, the Dactyl Review award selection process is primarily community based.