For the first time since 1977, no fiction piece was awarded a prize, even though David Foster Wallace's The Pale Kingwas nominated by the three-member jury as a finalist, as were Denis Johnson's Train Dreams and Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!The board, which consists of 18 voting members and has the final say, couldn’t reach a majority vote. The Huffington Post and Politico were among the first-time winners.