March 25, 2020 Whiting Awards 2020 Introducing the Winners of the 2020 Whiting Awards By The Paris Review For the sixth consecutive year, in 2020 The Paris Review Daily is pleased to announce the winners of the Whiting Awards. As in previous years, we’re also delighted to share excerpts of work by each of the winners. Here’s the list of the 2020 honorees: Aria Aber, poetry Diannely Antigua, poetry Will Arbery, drama Jaquira Díaz, nonfiction Andrea Lawlor, fiction Ling Ma, fiction Jake Skeets, poetry Genevieve Sly Crane, fiction Jia Tolentino, nonfiction Genya Turovskaya, poetry Since 1985, the Whiting Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, which are given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. The awards, of $50,000 each, are based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. Previous recipients include Lydia Davis, Deborah Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eugenides, Tony Kushner, Sigrid Nunez, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Mona Simpson, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and Colson Whitehead. Explore all the winners here. Congratulations to this year’s honorees. And for more great writing from Whiting Award recipients, check out our collections of work from the 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 winners.
March 25, 2020 Whiting Awards 2020 Genya Turovskaya, Poetry By Genya Turovskaya Genya Turovskaya. Photo: Willis Sparks. Genya Turovskaya was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and grew up in New York City. She is the author of The Breathing Body of This Thought (Black Square, 2019) and the chapbooks Calendar (Ugly Duckling, 2002), The Tides (Octopus, 2007), New Year’s Day (Octopus, 2011), and Dear Jenny (Supermachine, 2011). Her poetry and translations of contemporary Russian poets have appeared in Chicago Review, Conjunctions, A Public Space, and other publications. Her translation of Aleksandr Skidan’s Red Shifting was published by Ugly Duckling in 2008. She is a cotranslator of Elena Fanailova’s Russian Version (UDP, 2009, 2019), which won the University of Rochester’s Three Percent Award for Best Translated Book of Poetry in 2010. She is also a cotranslator of Endarkenment, The Selected Poems of Arkadii Dragomoshchenko (Wesleyan, 2014). She lives in Brooklyn. * “Failure to Declare” I am beside myself I have no beast in this ring, no horse in this race Nobody always waves goodbye The stars are different here The wind is gusting in reverse Read More
March 25, 2020 Whiting Awards 2020 Jia Tolentino, Nonfiction By Jia Tolentino Jia Tolentino. Photo: Elena Mudd. Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker, formerly the deputy editor at Jezebel and a contributing editor at The Hairpin. She grew up in Texas, went to the University of Virginia, and got her M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Michigan. Her book of essays, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion (Random House, 2019), was a New York Times best seller. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Time, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn. * An excerpt from Trick Mirror: The call of self-expression turned the village of the internet into a city, which expanded at time-lapse speed, social connections bristling like neurons in every direction. At ten, I was clicking around a web ring to check out other Angelfire sites full of animal GIFs and Smash Mouth trivia. At twelve, I was writing five hundred words a day on a public LiveJournal. At fifteen, I was uploading photos of myself in a miniskirt on Myspace. By twenty-five, my job was to write things that would attract, ideally, a hundred thousand strangers per post. Now I’m thirty, and most of my life is inextricable from the internet, and its mazes of incessant forced connection—this feverish, electric, unlivable hell. Read More
March 25, 2020 Whiting Awards 2020 Genevieve Sly Crane, Fiction By Genevieve Sly Crane Genevieve Sly Crane. Photo: Andrew Baris. Genevieve Sly Crane is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and Stony Brook Southampton, where she received her M.F.A. She teaches in the creative writing and literature B.F.A. program at Stony Brook. Sorority (Scout, 2018) is her first publication. * An excerpt from Sorority: Even as children, I knew that I loved Shannon enough to fail myself. I loved her liar’s chin, tilted downward with the sharpness of a spade when she spoke. I loved her tiny, fluid fingers that stole gum and Tic Tacs so easily when cashiers rummaged under the counter. And I feared that seed deep within that I could see in her pupils if I disappointed her, if I showed her my own unease. I see it so perfectly in our photographs now: we were little girls, with potbellies under bathing suits and eyes we hadn’t grown into yet, but my apprehension was there, wavering in my face, undulating with the heat waves behind us on the beach. She scared me. Read More
March 25, 2020 Whiting Awards 2020 Jake Skeets, Poetry By Jake Skeets Jake Skeets. Photo: Quanah Yazzie. Jake Skeets is Black Streak Wood, born for Water’s Edge. He is Diné from Vanderwagen, New Mexico. He is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers (Milkweed Editions, 2019), a National Poetry Series–winning collection of poems. He holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Skeets is a winner of the 2018 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Contest and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Skeets edits an online publication called Cloudthroat and organizes a poetry salon and reading series called Pollentongue, based in the Southwest. He is a member of Saad Bee Hózhǫ́: A Diné Writers’ Collective and currently teaches at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona. * “Virginity” Clouds in his throat, six months’ worth. He bodies into me half cosmos, half coyote. Read More
March 25, 2020 Whiting Awards 2020 Ling Ma, Fiction By Ling Ma Ling Ma. Photo: Anjali Pint. Ling Ma is author of the novel Severance (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), which received the Kirkus Prize and the Young Lions Fiction Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2018. Her work has appeared in Granta, Playboy, Vice, Ninth Letter, Chicago Reader, and other publications. She holds an M.F.A. from Cornell University and an A.B. from the University of Chicago. She lives in Chicago. * An excerpt from Severance: Todd opened the Gowers’ front door. Okay, ready! he yelled. We put on our face masks and rubber gloves. We went inside, carrying empty boxes and garbage bags. The door opened up to a large foyer. The walls of the staircase were hung with family photos. The Gower clan included a mother and father, a son and an older daughter. The father balding and portly, the mother, a bleached blonde, tightly trim with a wan smile, her hands crossed in her lap, displaying a pert French manicure, the manicure of choice among porn actresses and Midwestern housewives. Read More