Jennifer Sears ’13 has won the 2025 John Simmons Short Fiction Award for her short story collection What Mennonite Girls are Good For, which will be published by the University of Iowa Press this fall.
The collection, comprising eleven stories, follows a Mennonite minister's daughter as she navigates the journey from youthful understanding of her family's faith toward religious doubt. The protagonist, Ruthie, encounters both comedic and poignant moments while exploring life with and without her faith.
"Receiving this award is an honor, a validation of years of consistent effort, trust in my vision, and building my writing community," Sears said. "I am indebted to judge Margot Livesey and the team at the University of Iowa Press. I also hope this leads to publication of other completed projects."
The John Simmons Short Fiction Award, named after the first director of the University of Iowa Press, was established in 1988 to complement the existing Iowa Short Fiction Award. Both national competitions are juried through the Iowa Writers' Workshop and judged by acclaimed authors, with winning manuscripts published by the University of Iowa Press.
The title story of Sears’ collection was previously published in Witness Magazine in 2019.
Sears has received numerous accolades, including a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship ($25,000), a 2018 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, and a 2024 Fiction Book Award from the Northeast Modern Language Association. Her work has appeared in prestigious publications such as Electric Literature's Recommended Reading Series, Guernica, Ninth Letter, Fence, and The North American Review.
Sears, who earned her MFA in Writing from Columbia University, is currently an Associate Professor of English at New York City College of Technology (CUNY), where she co-coordinates the Creative Writing minor. She previously taught and performed dance and is currently working on a novel titled Other People's Sons, set in central Illinois during World War II, which received NEA funding.
