The Whiting Foundation, which, since 1985, supports emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama of exceptional early accomplishment and promise, has announced its 2019 winners: poets Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Tyree Daye, and Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, fiction writers Hernan Diaz, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, and Merritt Tierce, nonfiction writers Terese Marie Mailhot and Nadia Owusu, and drama writers Michael R. Jackson and Lauren Yee.

The $50,000 grant “ideally offers recipients a first opportunity to devote themselves fully to writing.” Previous recipients—who recently have included Ocean Vuong, Layli Long Soldier, Esmé Weijun Wang, and Patty Yumi Cottrell, among others—have gone on to win major awards and fellowships. The winners are determined through an anonymous process of nomination, which the Whiting Foundation receives from a pool of writers, editors, and critics that rotates annually.

Excerpts of the award winners’ most recent work can be read on The Paris Review Daily.

Image Credit: The Whiting Foundation