Whiting Writers' Awards Recipients Announced

The 2007 Whiting Writers' Awards were announced last night at a ceremony at the Morgan Library & Museum. Author Marilynne Robinson was the keynote speaker. The winners, chosen for their "extraordinary talent and promise," are Sheila Callaghan (for plays, including "Dead City"), Ben Fountain (fiction, "Brief Encounters With Che Guevara"), Paul Guest (poetry, "The Resurrection of the Body"), Brad Kessler (fiction, "Birds in Fall"), Cate Marvin (poetry, "Fragment of the Head of a Queen"), Tarell Alvin McCraney (plays, "The Brothers Size"), Carlo Rotella (nonfiction, "Cut Time: An Education at the Fights"), Dalia Sofer (fiction, "The Septembers of Shiraz"), Peter Trachtenberg (nonfiction, "Seven Tattoos: A Memoir in the Flesh"), and Jack Turner (nonfiction, "Teewinot: A Year in the Teton Range"). Each will receive $50,000.

The awards have been given annually since 1985 by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, established in 1963 by Flora E. Whiting. Candidates are proposed by about 100 anonymous nominators from across the country and chosen by a small, also anonymous, selection committee appointed by the foundation.

Mr. McCraney's play "The Brothers Size" is currently in previews at the Public Theater.