Updike receives Rea Award for short story as art form

John Updike has won yet another literary award. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author is this year's recipient of the Rea Award, a $30,000 honor for making a "significant contribution to the discipline of the short story as an art form."

"How rarely can it be said of any of our great American writers that they have been equally gifted in both long and short forms of fiction," reads a citation issued Wednesday by Rea judges Richard Ford, Ann Beattie and Joyce Carol Oates, all previous winners of the prize.

"Contemplating John Updike's monumental achievement in the short story, one is moved to think of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Ernest Hemingway and perhaps William Faulkner."

Updike, 74, is best known for his quartet of "Rabbit" novels, two of which received Pulitzers, but he has also published numerous story collections, including "Pigeon Feathers" and "Trust Me."