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 Abstract Wild
Essays

If anything is endangered in America it is our experience of wild nature—gross contact. There is knowledge only the wild can give us, knowledge specific to the experience of it. These are its gifts to us. In this, wilderness is no different from music, painting, poetry, or love: you concede the abundance and try to respond with grace.

Worldling
Poems

I found a white stone on the beach

inlaid with a blue-green road I could not follow.

All night I’d slept in fits and starts,

my only memory the in-out, in-out, of the tide.

And then morning. And then a walk,

the white stone beckoning, glinting in the sun.

I felt its calm power as I held it

and wished a wish I cannot tell.

It fit in my hand like a hand gently

holding my hand through a sleepless night.

A stone so like, so unlike,

all the others it could only be mine.

 

The worldess white stone of my life!

Nobody is Ever Missing
A Novel

After some time my husband reached over to hold my hand, which reminded me that at least there was this, at least we still had hands that remembered how to love each other, two bone-and-flesh flaps that hadn't complicated their simple love by speaking or thinking or being disappointed or having memories. They just held and were held and that is all. Oh, to be a hand.

Love Me Back
A Novel

I’m good enough to get the once-over in the bar at The Restaurant, I see them thinking my

smallness is appealing, my ass and face are cute enough, I see them thinking that short haircut

might be sexy. I’m always in a backless cocktail dress and heels, I’m flat chested and a tad

muscular so they ask me if I’m a dancer and say Call me sometime, let’s have a drink. It took

me a while to understand you’re supposed to work that for your money but you can let the

willingness fall right off your face when you turn around. It took me a while to understand that of

course men fling their entreaties out in swarms, like schools of sperm, hoping one will stick.

 
Catch as Catch Can
A Play

THERESA

I’m worried she’ll be a fish out of water.

 

ROBERTA

When do we meet her? When’re they movin’?


THERESA

Not now. Soon. We’ll see. They’re waiting to see if Mingjing can transfer jobs.


            ROBERTA puts down her cookie.


ROBERTA

What’s her name?

 

THERESA

Minjung.


ROBERTA

Theresa.


            THERESA sips tea.


THERESA

She’s in architecture, works for a big firm out there

 

ROBERTA

(indicating the under-eye skin) Those dark circles, no wonder.

 

THERESA

But she might give it up and teach.

 

ROBERTA

You seen her only once?

 

THERESA

Tim never said any—why would I think

 

ROBERTA

Such a rush.

 

THERESA

My brain’s exploded.

 

ROBERTA

I knew it: how far gone is she?

 

Note: A male actor plays the roles of both THERESA and her son TIM. A second male actor plays the roles of both ROBERTA and her son ROBBIE.

Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
Stories

Panther. Painter. Puma. Cougar. Mountain lion. Whatever you want to call it, by the end of October, half a dozen more people claim they have caught a glimpse of it: a pale sliver in the distance, a flash of fur through the trees. In the woods, hunters linger in their tree stands, hoping they might be the next. In the houses, the big cat creeps nightly, making the rounds of dinner tables and dreams.

The Abstract Wild
Essays

If anything is endangered in America it is our experience of wild nature—gross contact. There is knowledge only the wild can give us, knowledge specific to the experience of it. These are its gifts to us. In this, wilderness is no different from music, painting, poetry, or love: you concede the abundance and try to respond with grace.

Worldling
Poems

I found a white stone on the beach

inlaid with a blue-green road I could not follow.

All night I’d slept in fits and starts,

my only memory the in-out, in-out, of the tide.

And then morning. And then a walk,

the white stone beckoning, glinting in the sun.

I felt its calm power as I held it

and wished a wish I cannot tell.

It fit in my hand like a hand gently

holding my hand through a sleepless night.

A stone so like, so unlike,

all the others it could only be mine.

 

The worldess white stone of my life!

Nobody is Ever Missing
A Novel

After some time my husband reached over to hold my hand, which reminded me that at least there was this, at least we still had hands that remembered how to love each other, two bone-and-flesh flaps that hadn't complicated their simple love by speaking or thinking or being disappointed or having memories. They just held and were held and that is all. Oh, to be a hand.

Love Me Back
A Novel

I’m good enough to get the once-over in the bar at The Restaurant, I see them thinking my

smallness is appealing, my ass and face are cute enough, I see them thinking that short haircut

might be sexy. I’m always in a backless cocktail dress and heels, I’m flat chested and a tad

muscular so they ask me if I’m a dancer and say Call me sometime, let’s have a drink. It took

me a while to understand you’re supposed to work that for your money but you can let the

willingness fall right off your face when you turn around. It took me a while to understand that of

course men fling their entreaties out in swarms, like schools of sperm, hoping one will stick.

 
Catch as Catch Can
A Play

THERESA

I’m worried she’ll be a fish out of water.

 

ROBERTA

When do we meet her? When’re they movin’?


THERESA

Not now. Soon. We’ll see. They’re waiting to see if Mingjing can transfer jobs.


            ROBERTA puts down her cookie.


ROBERTA

What’s her name?

 

THERESA

Minjung.


ROBERTA

Theresa.


            THERESA sips tea.


THERESA

She’s in architecture, works for a big firm out there

 

ROBERTA

(indicating the under-eye skin) Those dark circles, no wonder.

 

THERESA

But she might give it up and teach.

 

ROBERTA

You seen her only once?

 

THERESA

Tim never said any—why would I think

 

ROBERTA

Such a rush.

 

THERESA

My brain’s exploded.

 

ROBERTA

I knew it: how far gone is she?

 

Note: A male actor plays the roles of both THERESA and her son TIM. A second male actor plays the roles of both ROBERTA and her son ROBBIE.

Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
Stories

Panther. Painter. Puma. Cougar. Mountain lion. Whatever you want to call it, by the end of October, half a dozen more people claim they have caught a glimpse of it: a pale sliver in the distance, a flash of fur through the trees. In the woods, hunters linger in their tree stands, hoping they might be the next. In the houses, the big cat creeps nightly, making the rounds of dinner tables and dreams.