The 10 winners of the 40th annual Whiting Awards, each of which comes with a $50,000 purse, were announced at a ceremony at the New York Historical on April 9. The event featured a keynote by poet and novelist Ocean Vuong.

In his keynote address, Vuong reflected on his own Whiting win in 2016. “The first thing I did with my prize money was buy my mother a house,” he said, adding that the award is “not just [about] the laurel but the monetary freedom it allows for those we love.” He noted that his win, and the help it provided for his mother, allowed him experiment with form, leading him to pen his first novel. “Artistic innovation is often predicated on the well-being...of the ones who brought us here,” he said.

He concluded his speech with light-hearted but salient advice for the evenings award recipients: “May you never believe in your own hype, but rather let the hype take you toward new heights and new beliefs.”

The winners were named by four previous Whiting winners: Eduardo C. Corral (2011) introduced the winners for poetry; Jia Tolentino (2020) announced the winners for nonfiction; James Ijames (2017) presented the winner for drama; and Alice McDermott (1987) revealed the winners in fiction.

Tolentino, in her remarks, said that “there are so vanishingly few times in a writer’s life” in which they get “unqualified good news”—but learning you’ve received a Whiting is one of them. Indeed, Corral remembered the phone call he received to tell him he had won his Whiting; he then immediately called his mother, who was working at a Mexican restaurant, to share the news. She burst into tears, and her coworkers began cheering. “They’re cheering for you,” she told Corral. “No,” he replied, “they’re cheering for you.”

The 2025 Whiting Award winners are:

  • Liza Birkenmeier (Drama)
  • Elwin Cotman (Fiction)
  • Emil Ferris (Fiction – graphic)
  • Samuel Kọ́láwọlé (Fiction)
  • Claire Luchette (Fiction)
  • Karisma Price (Poetry)
  • Aisha Sabatini Sloan (Nonfiction)
  • Shubha Sunder (Fiction)
  • Sofi Thanhauser (Nonfiction)
  • Annie Wenstrup (Poetry)

A reading by this year's winners, emceed by Rejection author Tony Tulathimutte, will be held at McNally Jackson Seaport tonight, April 10.

The Whiting Awards, established by the Whiting Foundation in 1985, have awarded more than $10 million will have been awarded to 400 fiction and nonfiction writers, poets, and playwrights.