The 2026 L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize has been awarded to Rufi Thorpe’s novel Margo’s Got Money Troubles, a funny novel about a dissatisfied and underemployed young woman who decides to keep a baby, let her estranged pro-wrestler father move in with her, and start an OnlyFans. Thorpe’s previous novels include The Girls from Corona Del Mar, Dear Fang, With Love, and The Knockout Queen, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. In addition to the award, Thorpe will receive $25,000.
Thorpe’s Clark winning novel was up against an impressive shortlist that also included The Most by Jessica Anthony, I’ll Give You A Reason by Annell López, and Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte.
This year’s Clark Prize was judged by Kevin Brockmeier, an O. Henry Prize winning author of The Ghost Variations, among other books. Brockmeier describes Margo’s Got Money Troubles as a book full of “warmth and humor” that “accepts every narrative dare it offers itself.” He praised the novel’s surprising tenderness, writing that “you wouldn’t think that a novel about economic vulnerability, online sex work, romantic predation, drug addiction, and the callousness of the state would ring such a note of hope.”
The Clark prize is administered by Texas State University’s MFA program. The prize is named for L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark, who donated their home and funds to create an endowment and writers-in-residence program to support fiction at Texas Statue University. The Clark Prize has been around since 2016, and previous winners have included Isabella Hammad, Jamal Jan Kochai, Percival Everett, Raven Leilani, Chia-Chia Lin, Rebecca Makkai, Daniel Alarcón, Jim Shepard, and Colson Whitehead.