"[1] Until 2002 there were first, second, and third prize winners and from 2003 to 2019 there were three jurors who each selected a short story of special interest or merit; the collection is called The PEN/O.

The current series editor for The O. Henry Prize Stories is Jenny Minton Quigley.

[2] In 2009 The O. Henry Prize Stories publisher, Anchor Books, renamed the series in partnership with the PEN American Center (today PEN America), producing the first PEN/O.

Henry Prize Stories 2009 would be directed to PEN's Readers & Writers Program, which sends well-known authors to under served inner-city schools.

The selection included stories by Graham Joyce, John Burnside, Roger Nash, Manuel Muñoz, Ha Jin, Paul Theroux, Judy Troy, Nadine Gordimer, Marisa Silver, Paul Yoon, Andrew Sean Greer, and Junot Díaz, with A. S. Byatt, Tim O'Brien and Anthony Doerr – all authors of past O. Henry Prize Stories – serving as the prize jury.