Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grants Announced, Tom Hanks the Writer, and More
Amazon releases waterproof Kindle; seventy-two writers pen letter in defense of Norton editor Jill Bialosky; a profile of Philip Pullman; and other news.
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
On Beauty
“You can always tell prettiness from beauty. Beauty arises from contradiction, even when it’s under the surface. Any report of experience will be contradictory. And part of the reportage is to include those contradictions,” says Chris Kraus in a conversation with Leslie Jamison for Interview magazine. Write a personal essay exploring the idea that an underlying contradiction is intrinsic to the value of beauty. What are some images, scenes, or emotions in your own life or in art you’ve encountered that you found to be beautiful, and what contradictions might lie within them? How can you effectively integrate contradictions into your own reportage to explore true beauty?
Whiting Foundation Announces Creative Nonfiction Grant Recipients
The Whiting Foundation has announced the recipients of the 2017 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grants, given annually to up to eight writers in the process of completing a book of creative nonfiction. The writers will each receive $40,000.
The grantees are:
Michael Brenson for David Smith and the Transformation of American Sculpture, forthcoming from Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Philip Gourevitch for You Hide That You Hate Me and I Hide That I Know, forthcoming from Penguin Press
Pacifique Irankunda for The Time of Stories, forthcoming from Random House
Seth Kantner for A Thousand Trails Home, forthcoming from Mountaineers Books
Jay Kirk for Avoid the Day, forthcoming from Harper Perennial
Meghan O’Rourke for What’s Wrong With Me? The Mysteries of Chronic Illness, forthcoming from Riverhead Books
George Packer for Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, forthcoming from Knopf
Julie Phillips for The Baby on the Fire Escape, forthcoming from Norton
The winners were selected from a list of fifteen finalists by an anonymous judging panel. Now in its second year, the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant “fosters original, ambitious projects that bring writing to the highest possible standard.” The applicants must have a publishing contract and be at least two years into their project. The next round of applications will open in Spring 2018.
For more than forty years, the Whiting Foundation has supported literature and the humanities through its various programs, including its annual awards for emerging writers and the new Whiting Literary Magazines Prizes, which honor literary journals. Visit the website for more information.
(Photos: Top row, from left: Michael Brenson, Philip Gourevitch, Pacifique Irankunda, Seth Kantner; Bottom row, from left: Jay Kirk, Meghan O'Rourke, George Packer, Julie Phillips)
Amy Tan on Memoir Writing
Caption:
“Our lives don’t happen chronologically in memory, and a good memoirist has to know how to structure that memoir in a way that you can see the shaping of a life....” Amy Tan, whose second memoir, Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir (Ecco, 2017), is featured in Page One of the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about the genre and about Mary Karr’s memoir writing.
Genre:
Ward and Nguyen Receive MacArthur Genius Grants, the Mall Poet, and More
A new volume of Sylvia Plath letters; Romanian poet Ana Blandiana receives Griffin Trust lifetime achievement award; E. L. James to publish another Fifty Shades of Grey novel; and other news.
The Savvy Self-Publisher: Vinnie Kinsella
Vinnie Kinsella shares the process of self-publishing an essay anthology, Fashionably Late: Gay, Bi, and Trans Men Who Came Out Later in Life. An editor and a publicist weigh in.
Tags:
The Written Image: David Sedaris Diaries
Published this month by Little, Brown, David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium features images and artwork from the best-selling author’s 153 diaries, which he composed over the past forty years.
Tags:
John Green on Writing About Mental Illness, Diversity in Publishing, and More
Nnedi Okorafor’s fantasy novels reinvent the genre; how One Story ended up publishing Tom Hanks; 2017 ALTA award winners announced; and other news.
The Sewanee Review at 125
The country’s longest-running literary quarterly publishes its 500th issue with a new design, a new editor, and a new submissions platform, but the same old commitment to literary excellence.
Leonard Cohen’s Last Book, Response to Ishiguro’s Nobel Win, and More
Playboy’s literary editor shares her experiences; Image to publish Flannery O’Connor’s college journal; writers on their favorite cultural experience of 2017; and other news.
Pages
