The annual Whiting Writer’s Awards single out ten authors with “exceptional talent and promise in early career.” A prize of $50,000 is presented to early-career writers in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and plays. The 2013 recipients include fiction writers Amanda Coplin (The Orchardist), Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams (The Man Who Danced With Dolls), Jennifer Dubois (A Partial History of Lost Causes), C.E. Morgan (All The Living), Stephanie Powell Watson (We Are Taking Only What We Want); playwright Virginia Grise (Making Myth); poets Ishion Hutchinson (Far District: Poems), Rowan Ricardo Phillips (The Ground); and nonfiction writers Morgan Meis (The Ruins), and Clifford Thompson (Signifying Nothing).

The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation was established in 1963 by Flora E. Whiting. Since the award’s inception in 1985 it has given 260 writers the $50,000 prize. Last year’s recipients included Ciaran Berry, Atsuro Riley, Mona Mansour, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Anthony Marra who is nominated for this year’s National Book Award.

WhitingFoundation.org