Rufi Thorpe’s fourth novel, “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” has won the 2026 L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize. The $25,000 prize recognizes exceptional fiction published in the previous year.
“ Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is a funny and poignant literary novel about a young single mother who reluctantly turns to OnlyFans — and advice from her estranged pro-wrestling father — in order to make ends meet. Funny and sharply insightful, “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is also a tender tale of a heroine struggling to wrest control over her own fate — and over her own narrative — both on the internet and off.
This year’s Clark Prize judge, O. Henry Awardwinning author Kevin Brockmeier, chose Thorpe’s novel from a shortlist of four outstanding books of fiction, including “Rejection” by Tony Tulathimutte, “The Most” by Jessica Anthony, and “ I’ll Give You a Reason” by Annell López. The shortlist was selected by Texas State’s Clark Prize committee from a competitive longlist of titles nominated by a panel of distinguished authors and critics across the United States.
“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. Yet here you have it,” said Brockmeier. “’Margo’s Got Money Troubles,’ which claims the page with such warmth and humor that no matter how difficult its heroine’s life becomes, you always feel the book embracing her—and therefore, in its way, embracing you, too.
“For me at least, the fact that the book is so charming and surprising, and that it accepts every narrative dare it offers itself, are not even the highest of its virtues, which is that it is able to display so much intelligence with so little cynicism,” he said.
“It’s a mistake to believe that writing into the darkness is the only mark of sophistication for a story and that writing into the light never is,” Brockmeier said. “That’s what Thorpe does here, writes into the light of her characters’ lives, and novels, I think, should do that at least as often as the world does.”
Rufi Thorpe received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009. She is the author of the novels The Girls from Corona Del Mar, Dear Fang, With Love and The Knockout Queen, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award. “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is being adapted as a miniseries by A24 and Apple TV, starring Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Workéyè and Nick Offerman, and is set to release on April 15.
ABOUT THE CLARK FICTION PRIZE Since 2016, Texas State’s Department of English has administered the Clark Fiction prize in celebration of the Clarks’ lifelong contributions to, and love for, literature and the arts. In nine years, Clark prize-winning books and authors have gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critic Circle’s John Leonard Prize, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and more. Recent winners have included Isabella Hammad, Jamil Jan Kochai, Percival Everett, Raven Leilani, Chia-Chia Lin, Rebecca Makkai, Daniel Alarcón, Jim Shepard and Colson Whitehead.
ABOUT THE L.D.
AND LAVERNE HARRELL CLARK LITERARY ENDOWMENT L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark donated their home and other property to TXST in 2009 to create an endowment to support writers-in-residence. The Clark Literary Endowment funds the annual L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize, which is among the most generous fiction prizes in the country. It also funds a writers-in-residence program that offers one-year residencies to graduates of the TXST MFA program at the Clarks’ historic home on Main Street in Smithville, 55 miles east of TXST’s San Marcos campus.
The Department of English and MFA Program in Creative Writing within the College of Liberal Arts sponsor the writers-in-residence program. The endowment also funds numerous scholarships for TXST MFA students.
For more information, visit english.txst.edu/abo ut/clark/fiction-prize.
