Whiting Award Winners
Since 1985, the Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, which are given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
The next day I piled my possessions among the goats and chickens and boxes tied with string on the roof of a taxi brousse, squeezed in with the Senegalese passengers, and went to Dakar. I got the key to my new house, took a pregnancy test, and arranged a round-trip flight to Washington, D.C. Every Peace Corps volunteer was allowed one abortion.
NAT TURNER
What do you mean by your copyright?
The right to copy?
THOMAS R. GRAY
Yes, well, the right to publish and distribute, which involves copying necessarily.
NAT
And who can grant such a right?
THOMAS
The copyright office, naturally.
NAT
...
THOMAS
It protects the rights of the man who has done the work.
NAT
And is God not a sufficient witness of our works?
THOMAS
Uh,
No.
To miss my life in Kabul is to tongue
pears laced with needles. I had no life
in Kabul. How, then, can I trust my mind’s long corridor,
its longing for before? I have a faint depression
polluting my heart, sings the lake. That there is music
in everything if you tune into it
devastates me. Even trauma sounds like Traum,
the German word for dream.
Daddy shook the box, kicked it, mumbled under his breath something that sounded like it had teeth. He came from around the house with a shovel and dragged it behind him, along with the box, to the woods. He would bury my dog, I thought.
WEN CHANG
he was leading students in an obscene chant.
SAUL
what'd he say?
WEN CHANG
"u.s.a. u.s.a."
SAUL
oh come ON, that's every titty bar in america.
WEN CHANG
surrounded by student protestors in white headbands. it was a clear political protest. a declaration of war.
SAUL
war?! are you crazy?
WEN CHANG
less than twenty-four hours on chinese soil and this is what he does. how could you do this to me?
He tried to swerve around her but, instead, went into a slide. The reds and yellows in the road stretched out. Cottonwood leaves roared in his head. His bowels shuddered. Even before he struck the girl and hurled her into the creek bed, he felt all the familiar habits of the world begin to recede.
The next day I piled my possessions among the goats and chickens and boxes tied with string on the roof of a taxi brousse, squeezed in with the Senegalese passengers, and went to Dakar. I got the key to my new house, took a pregnancy test, and arranged a round-trip flight to Washington, D.C. Every Peace Corps volunteer was allowed one abortion.
NAT TURNER
What do you mean by your copyright?
The right to copy?
THOMAS R. GRAY
Yes, well, the right to publish and distribute, which involves copying necessarily.
NAT
And who can grant such a right?
THOMAS
The copyright office, naturally.
NAT
...
THOMAS
It protects the rights of the man who has done the work.
NAT
And is God not a sufficient witness of our works?
THOMAS
Uh,
No.
To miss my life in Kabul is to tongue
pears laced with needles. I had no life
in Kabul. How, then, can I trust my mind’s long corridor,
its longing for before? I have a faint depression
polluting my heart, sings the lake. That there is music
in everything if you tune into it
devastates me. Even trauma sounds like Traum,
the German word for dream.
Daddy shook the box, kicked it, mumbled under his breath something that sounded like it had teeth. He came from around the house with a shovel and dragged it behind him, along with the box, to the woods. He would bury my dog, I thought.
WEN CHANG
he was leading students in an obscene chant.
SAUL
what'd he say?
WEN CHANG
"u.s.a. u.s.a."
SAUL
oh come ON, that's every titty bar in america.
WEN CHANG
surrounded by student protestors in white headbands. it was a clear political protest. a declaration of war.
SAUL
war?! are you crazy?
WEN CHANG
less than twenty-four hours on chinese soil and this is what he does. how could you do this to me?
He tried to swerve around her but, instead, went into a slide. The reds and yellows in the road stretched out. Cottonwood leaves roared in his head. His bowels shuddered. Even before he struck the girl and hurled her into the creek bed, he felt all the familiar habits of the world begin to recede.