Dark, director of the prize, and advisory board member Julie Lindsey will select three finalists from among books entered in the competition. Three independent judges will then choose the winner from among the finalists. In a release to the press, Dark said, “In creating this award, we want to recognize outstanding short fiction collections, which often get lost in the shuffle when considered against novels for the other annual book awards.”

The first awards ceremony for The Story Prize will be open to the public and held at Symphony Space in New York City on January 26, 2005 as part of Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story, a live reading series in which prominent stage and screen actors give voice to classic and contemporary short stories.