The Winners of the 2017 Whiting Awards

10 promising writers just received $50K each. Time to celebrate.

The winners of the 2017 Whiting Awards have just been announced, which means that 10 talented writers will soon be walking the streets of Manhattan’s Upper West Side with a skip in their step and a cool $50K in their pockets. Or maybe this is a giant novelty check situation? Either way, you can likely catch them at the Columbus & 77th Shake Shack, where flush literati go to celebrate. Electric Literature is live-tweeting from the scene.

Enough ado. The 2017 winners are:

Kaitlyn Greenidge Fiction
Tony Tulathimutte Fiction
Clare Barron Drama
Lisa Halliday Fiction
Jen Beagin Fiction
James Ijames Drama
Francisco Cantú Nonfiction
Clarence Coo Drama
Simone White Poetry
Phillip B. Williams Poetry

The Whiting Awards annually identify “exceptional new writers who have yet to make their mark in the literary culture” and aim to provide them with funds to afford “a first opportunity to devote themselves fully to writing.”

You can get a taste of the winners’ work right here in Electric Literature.

• Hole
• How to Have Fun Destroying Yourself: An Interview with Tony Tulathimutte, Author of Private Citizens

To date, the Whiting Foundation, with an endowment from the late Flora Ettlinger Whiting, has awarded more than $7 million to over 300 writers. Past winners include Colson Whitehead, Elif Batuman, David Foster Wallace, Tony Kushner, Denis Johnson, Mary Karr, Ocean Vuong, Jonathan Franzen, August Wilson and Adam Johnson. Congratulations to this year’s grantees.