Whiting Award Winners

"Everyone is No one./ But someone/ could be Someone/ in the vertical/ topography/of gods—" muses Dana Levin, in a new poem for the Adroit Journal.

Row writes about selective love of literature, whitness, and epiphanies, in the Paris Review, musing that "Love, which drives us toward literature in the first place, may be the thing that prevents us from achieving it."

Mehta discusses the movitation behind his new book about immigration, This Land Is Our Land, by explaining that "a populist is a gifted storyteller—someone who can tell a false story well. The only way to fight him is by telling a true story better."

Nafissa Thompson-Spires explains that the goal of a writer "should be to tell the truth in some way, even if it's to tell it slant – or to imagine a better version of the truth" and more in this interview with The Guardian.

The New York Times profiles the "funny and self-examining" Michael R. Jackson and talks to him about his "equally hilarious and brutal, lacerating and tender" show, A Strange Loop.

Whitehead discusses John Carpenter, space travel, tackling writers block, and more.

The Adroit Journal urges readers to pick up a copy of Jackson's latest, writing, "It is our duty to understand the contexts that lead to the awful negotiation of survival math in the first place. Read the whole book. Read the footnotes. Learn."

"I don't worry about whether it's 70 percent white, and 30 percent black, because regardless," Michael R. Jackson tells the publication about his new musical A Strange Loop, "the center of the story is still a black one. That, to me, is what's the most important."

Michael R. Jackson explains that, when he creates a work of art, "My audience is always changing, depending on what the piece is." He also delves into the role of audience, experimentation within musical theater, why A Strange Loop isn't autobiographical, and more.

"If greatness is excellence sustained over time, then without question," TIME writes, "Whitehead is one of the greatest of his generation." Whitehead, profiled by fellow Whiting winner Mitchell S. Jackson, is featured on the cover of the magazine.

The Review calls Vuong's novel "an elegant feat of language manipulation."

Of the life of a poet, Brown says, "You become an occasion for which people can come together." Brown also talks about book tours, being an "ambassador of poetry," and the limits of the genre. 

Yee is one of two playwrights to receive the $275,000 award for 2019.

Newsday says Whitehead's new novel has "the hot breath of a true story" and "a beautiful, unforgettable young hero who walks right off the page into your heart."

"Whitehead negotiates a tightrope walk between the need to depict the experience of race and racism," writes Slate, "and a stubborn individualistic resistance to the claims of collective identity."

Publishers Weekly calls Pico's newest collection "riveting" with "moments of stunning beauty."

Jennifer duBois gives her unfiltered writing advice, telling writers to "try to amuse yourself first," and talks about what she hopes readers remember after they finish her new novel, The Spectators.

Broadway World says Michael R. Jackson's musical A Strange Loop is a "clever, tuneful and gloriously neurotic mix of self-exploration and social commentary."

"I age in reserve until I am as/ small as my child/ body, my chest swollen/ with bright longing," writes Villareal in a new poem for Poets.org.

The two writers discuss being Vietnamese-American authors, the refugee experience, and Ocean's idea of the book as a "private town square" where readers, he says, "if I'm lucky to have them, meet there and do whatever they want."

Vuong reflects on the constraints of traditional masculinity for the Paris Review, writing, "I wonder if boys can ever bandage each other's feet, in friendship, without a password - with only passage, between each other, without shame."

Choi received the award for her translation of Kim Hyesoon's Autobiography of Death. "Through Don Mee Choi's extraordinary translations," the judges' citation reads, "we hear the clamorous registers of Kim's art."

Vuong discusses his new novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, and why he defines survival as "a result of active self-knowledge, and even more so, a creative force."

The New York Times praises Vuong's "experimental, highly poetic" novel, writing that "the book is brilliant in the way it pays attention not to what our thoughts make us feel, but to what our feelings make us think."