Pushcart Prize for the short story Writs of Possession (originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review), included in the 2012 Pushcart Prize Anthology

$25,000 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts 2012

The Mud Man (originally published in The Southern Review) listed as one of the 100 Notable Stories of the Year in Best American Short Stories 2011, edited by Geraldine Brooks.

2011 Society of Midlands Authors Award for Fiction: The Wilding

The Killing (originally published in Salt Hill Journal) named one of the 100 Distinguished Stories of 2008 in Best American Short Stories 2009, ed. Alice Sebold.

$50,000 Whiting Award, The Whiting Foundation, 2008

Winner of the Ann Powers Book-length Fiction Award, Council for Wisconsin Writers, 2008

Somebody is Going to Have to Pay for This (originally published in the Paris Review) named one of the 100 Distinguished Stories of 2007 in Best American Short Stories 2008, ed. Salman Rushdie.

In the Rough (originally published in the Antioch Review) named one of the 100 Distinguished Stories of 2007 in Best American Short Stories 2008, ed. Salman Rushdie.

Wal-Mart and the Apocalypse and Me (originally published in Green Mountains Review) named one of the 100 Notable Essays of 2007 in Best American Essays 2008, ed. Adam Gopnik.

The Pushcart Prize Fellowship, 2007

John Gardner Fellowship in Fiction, Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, Summer 2007

$10,000 Plimpton Prize, The Paris Review, 2007

The Language of Elk (Carnegie Mellon University Press) short-listed for the Story Prize.

Refresh, Refresh, The Pushcart Prize XXXI: Best of the Small Presses, 2007.

Refresh, Refresh, Best American Short Stories 2006, ed. Ann Patchett.

Where to Begin $1,000 Tamarack Award, Minnesota Monthly, 2006

Swans $1,000 Editor’s Prize, The Idaho Review, Volume VI, 2004

Tennessee Williams Scholarship, 2003 Sewanee Writers’ Conference

Falling $1,500 Prize, 2002 Nelson Algren Award, The Chicago Tribune