STELLA KUPFERBERG MEMORIAL SHORT STORY PRIZE

The Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize is awarded annually by Selected Shorts and a guest author judge. This year, Ottessa Moshfegh selected J. Condra Smith's story “Kestrel” as the 2025 winner. Please enjoy Krystina Alabado's performance of this story.

The story is also available to read on Electric Literature:

J. Condra Smith is a queer writer with roots in both Mexico and the U.S. He holds an MFA from The University of Maryland, where he also taught creative writing. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fiction International, Peatsmoke, and elsewhere.

Krystina Alabado was last seen starring in Regency Girls at The Old Globe, in Mystic Pizza at Papermill Playhouse, and as Dot in Sunday in the Park with George at the Pasadena Playhouse. Her Broadway credits include the role of Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls, as well as roles in American Psycho and Green Day’s American Idiot. She has performed in the national tours of Evita, American Idiot, and Spring Awakening, and off-Broadway in The Mad Ones, This Ain’t No Disco, David Bowie's Lazarus, and Camp Wanatachi. Her film and television credits include If You See Something, Disney’s Better Nate Than Ever, A Killer Party, Sunny Day, God Friended Me, First Reformed, FX’s Tyrant, Mecha Builders on Max, Voltron Legendary Defender on Netflix, and most notably the voice of Cherri Bomb on Amazon Prime's hit animated series Hazbin Hotel. Alabado can be heard on the cast albums of The Mad Ones, A Killer Party, Goosebumps The Musical, Star Crossed, and more.

Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands, her second and third novels, were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and the novella McGlue. Her most recent novel, Lapvona, was published in June 2022.