Introducing the Winners of the 2019 Whiting Awards

For the fifth consecutive year, The Paris Review Dailyis pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 Whiting Awards. As in previous years, we’re also delighted to share excerpts from work by each of the winners. Here’s the list of honorees:

• Kayleb Rae Candrilli, poetry
• Tyree Daye, poetry
• Hernan Diaz, fiction
• Michael R. Jackson, drama
• Terese Marie Mailhot, nonfiction
• Nadia Owusu, nonfiction
• Nafissa Thompson-Spires, fiction
• Merritt Tierce, fiction
• Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, poetry
• Lauren Yee, drama

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 fifty thousand dollars 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. Those who live in New York can see the 2019 winners read from their work in the Strand’s Rare Book Room on Thursday, March 21. And for more great writing from Whiting Award recipients, check out our collections of work from the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 winners.