Whiting Foundation announces grants of $50,000 each for 10 emerging writers

NEW YORK – Ten emerging writers, from an author of speculative fiction to a poet rooted in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, have received $50,000 grants from the Whiting Foundation.

Since 1985, the foundation has had a mission to nurture “new creations” by supporting poets, playwrights and authors of fiction and nonfiction. Past winners have included Tony Kushner, André Aciman and Tracy K. Smith.

This week, the foundation announced its class of 2025. Elwin Cofman writes speculative fiction that Whiting judges say offers “illuminating sites of bawdy humor and horror,” while Karisma Price crafts post-Katrina poems that are “songs, howls, portraits, critiques.” Judges praised the essays of Aisha Sabatini Sloan for their “startling connections between the personal and the collective.”

The other winners were dramatist Liza Birkenmeier, fiction writers Samuel Kọ́láwọlé, Shubha Sunder and Claire Luchette, graphic fiction writer Emil Ferris, poet Annie Wenstrup and nonfiction writer Sofi Thanhauser.

“These writers demonstrate astounding range; each has invented the tools they needed to carve out their narratives and worlds,” Courtney Hodell, Whiting’s director of literary programs, said in a statement. “Taken as a whole, their work shows a sharply honed sensitivity to our history, both individual and collective, and a passionate curiosity as to where a deeper understanding of that history can take us.”