The Whiting Foundation’s Creative Nonfiction Grant is in its second year and seeks to acknowledge the creation of exemplary works of nonfiction—springing from the realm of the imagination as well as from diligent research and reporting. The prize supports authors who are completing works in progress and is awarded to eight writers annually.
This year’s winners represent a wonderful mix of history, journalism, and memoir. However, the winners are overwhelmingly white and male. We hope that next year the Whiting Awards will be more inclusive in selecting winning writers, especially as people of color and women are at the greatest disadvantage in the publishing world and could most use the support of a great prize like this. If you need some suggestions, Whiting Awards Committee, we are here for you. You know how to reach us.
And the 2017 Creative Nonfiction Grant winners are…
Michael Brenson: David Smith and the Transformation of American Sculpture, forthcoming from Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Philip Gourevitch: You Hide That You Hate Me And I Hide That I Know, forthcoming from Penguin Press
Pacifique Irankunda: The Times of Stories, forthcoming from Random House
Seth Kantner: A Thousand Trails Home, forthcoming from Mountaineers Books
Jay Kirk: Avoid the Day, forthcoming from Harper Perennial
Meghan O’Rourke: What’s Wrong With Me? The Mysteries of Chronic Illness, forthcoming from Riverhead Books
George Packer: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf
Julie Phillips: The Baby on the Fire Escape, forthcoming from W. W. Norton
