Originally published on April 14, 2021 7:45 pm
The winners of this year's Whiting Awards have been announced; the $50,000 prize is aimed at allowing emerging writers to focus full-time on their work — or to branch off in new directions.
"Each of these winners has a rare literary gift," Whiting Director of Literary Programs Courtney Hodell says via email. "Our hope is that the Whiting Award will offer encouragement and support as they continue to dig deep into their art to nurture the work that sings it."
This year's group of winners is "really a wide-ranging cohort of talent, and that itself is a kind of common thread," Hodell says. "So many of these winners follow their muses over, under, and across genre boundaries in a fertile and exciting way. Speaking to the writers after they were selected, we were also struck by the strong sense of community they share. These are brilliant individuals who are attuned to the multitudinous connections that feed their writing and their selves — connections to family, to place, to other artists past and present — and who think fruitfully about how to honor those ties in their work."