Nine writers have won the Whiting Foundation’s Creative Nonfiction Grant for 2022, the seventh year the foundation has offered the award. The $40,000 grants—which, unlike the Whiting Awards, writers must apply for—are meant to support multi-year book projects that exhibit both boldness of vision and evidence of sharply honed craft: “singularity of voice, arresting narrative vision, and in-depth research spread over multiple years,” as the foundation puts it.

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The winners are Atossa Araxia Abrahamian for The Hidden Globe, an investigation of special economic zones that exist outside the bounds of nation states, forthcoming from Riverhead; Emily Dufton for Addiction, Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and the War on Drugs, a history of the medication-assisted treatment for heroin addiction, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press; Wes Enzinna for Impossible Paradise: Life, Death, and Home in a California Tent City, which probes the origins and consequences of American homelessness through the lens of an outdoor encampment in Oakland, forthcoming from Penguin Press; Ekow Eshun for The Strangers, a study of Black masculinity that mashes up memoir with biographies of culturally influential figures from the 19th century to the present day, forthcoming from Hamish Hamilton in the United Kingdom; Patricia Evangelista for Some People Need Killing, a mix of literary journalism and first-person narrative investigating President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs in the Phillipines, forthcoming from Random House; Brooke Jarvis for Invisible Apocalypse, a deep-dive into the disappearance of insects across the globe, forthcoming from Crown; May Jeong for The Life: Sex, Work, and Love in America, an intersectional exploration of the lives of sex workers, forthcoming from Atria; Mathelinda Nabugodi for The Trembling Hand: Reflections of a Black Woman in the Romantic Archive, a critique of Romantic poetry and its links to the Black Atlantic slave trade, forthcoming from Hamish Hamilton in the United Kingdom and Knopf in the United States; and Alejandra Oliva for Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration, which explores the U.S. immigration system as seen through the eyes of the author, who has worked as a translator for asylum seekers, forthcoming from Astra House.

Courtney Hodell, the Whiting Foundation’s director of literary programs, praised the grantees for having “the courage and freshness of vision to address consequential stories hiding in plain sight,” she said in a statement. “It’s our hope that the Foundation’s support will help these gifted writers delve into the most necessary places, whether that’s in the archives, on the street, or within our understanding.”

Each of the winning projects were reviewed by two first-round readers, who judged according to “substance, narrative skill, quality of research, and impact.” Sixteen finalists were then evaluated by a panel of four judges, who considered how the grant might support the development of the book. The anonymous readers and judges were experts in the field of each proposed book project.

For more than forty years, the Whiting Foundation has supported literature and the humanities through its programs and grants. The Whiting Awards annually awards ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama with $50,000 each, and the Whiting Literary Magazines Prizes help journals foster path-breaking writing with individual financial awards.

To learn more about the Whiting Foundation’s Creative Nonfiction Grant, visit the foundation’s website. Check out the Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more contests in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation. 

Before the holiday season descends with its tinsel-trimmed excuses for not sending out your work, try submitting to these eleven contests with a November 15 deadline! Among the awards are $20,000 for a published story collection, $3,000 for a short short story, $1,000 for a poetry collection, and $1,000 for an individual poem, story, and essay. All awards offer a cash prize of $500 or more. Good luck to you, writers!

Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival
Brooklyn Nonfiction Prize
A prize of $500 and publication on the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival website is given annually for a work of nonfiction that is set in Brooklyn, New York, and renders the borough’s “rich soul and intangible qualities through the writer’s actual experiences in Brooklyn.” The winner will also be invited to read and discuss their winning work at the festival’s finale event. All entries are considered for publication. Entry Fee: None.

Carve
Prose & Poetry Contest
Three prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Carve will be given annually for a poem, a short story, and an essay. Entry Fee: $17.

Commonwealth Club of California
California Book Awards
Five prizes of $5,000 each are given annually for a poetry collection, a book of fiction, a first book of fiction, a book of creative nonfiction, and a book of fiction or nonfiction that relates to California. Three additional prizes of $2,500 are also given in the fiction, first fiction, and nonfiction categories. Books written by authors residing in California are eligible. Entry Fee: None.

Community of Literary Magazines & Presses
Firecracker Awards 
Three prizes of $2,000 each will be given annually for a book of poetry, a book of fiction, and a book of creative nonfiction published by an independent press in the current year ($1,000 for each author and $1,000 for their respective publisher). Works in translation and graphic novels are eligible. Entry Fee: $65.

Nightboat Books
Poetry Prize
Up to four prizes of $1,000 each and publication by Nightboat Books are given annually for poetry collections. The editors will judge. Entry Fee: $28.

Nina Riggs Poetry Foundation
Nina Riggs Poetry Award
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a single poem that examines relationships, family, or domestic life that was published in a book or magazine in the last three years. Nominate no more than six poems by one author that were published in a book or print magazine in 2020, 2021, or 2022. Self-nominations are not accepted. Entry Fee: None.

Perugia Press
Perugia Press Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Perugia Press is given annually for a first or second poetry collection by a writer who identifies as a woman. Entry Fee: $15.

Pushcart Press
Editors’ Book Award
A prize of $1,000 is given occasionally for a fiction or nonfiction manuscript that has been rejected by a commercial publisher. The award recognizes “worthy manuscripts that have been overlooked by today’s high-pressure, bottom-line publishing conglomerates.” Manuscripts must be submitted with a formal letter of nomination from an editor at a U.S. or Canadian publishing company. Entry Fee: None.

The Story Prize
The Story Prize
A prize of $20,000 is given annually for a story collection written in English and first published in the United States in the current year. Two runners-up will receive $5,000 each, and one entrant will receive the $1,000 Story Prize Spotlight Award, given for a collection that merits further attention. Larry Dark and Julie Lindsey will select the three finalists and the Spotlight Award winner; three independent judges will choose the Story Prize winner. Entry Fee: $75.

Writer’s Digest
Short Short Story Competition
A prize of $3,000 and travel and lodging expenses for a trip to the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference is given annually for a short short story. A second-place prize of $1,500 is also awarded. The winners will both be published in Writer’s Digest. Entry Fee: $30.

Yale University Press
Yale Series of Younger Poets
A prize of $1,000, publication by Yale University Press, and a writing fellowship at the James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut, is given annually for a poetry collection by a poet who has not published a full-length book of poetry. Rae Armantrout will judge. Entry Fee: $25.

Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out the Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more contests in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation.

Is it possible to achieve mastery of an art form? In Carl Phillips’s essay “What We Are Carrying: Meditations on a Writing Practice,” excerpted from his book My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations From a Life in Writing (Yale University Press, 2022) and published in the November/December 2022 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, he argues that “the relationship—between two people, between art and maker—is symbiotic and organic, ever changing, on both sides” therefore it is the commitment to writing that outweighs any idea of mastering it. Drawing from various practices such as learning to speak Italian and playing the clarinet, Phillips writes about the importance of “useful mistakes” and how revision reveals the ways in which a poem is a map, “not a way of getting somewhere, but a record of having been lost.” Keeping Phillips’s essay in mind, write a poem with the intention of getting lost in the writing process. Let your imagination guide you toward surprise.

Submissions are still open for the Evaristo Prize for African Poetry! As part of this award, $1,500 is given annually for ten poems written by an African poet who has not yet published a poetry collection (self-published works of poetry and chapbooks not included). Writers who were born in Africa, who are a national or a resident of an African country, or whose parents are African are eligible. Only collections written in English, including works of translation, will be considered.

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Using only the online submission system, submit exactly ten poems of no more than 40 lines each by November 1. There is no entry fee. Editorial board member Gabeba Baderoon will judge alongside poets Tjawangwa Dema and Tsitsi Ella Jaji. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Formerly known as the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, this award was established in 2012 by British writer Bernardine Evaristo and was recently passed on to the African Poetry Book Fund. With a decade long history and a 2022 inaugural contest cycle under a new title, the Evaristo Prize for African Poetry still seeks to “encourage a new generation of poets who might one day become an international presence.” The shortlist will be announced in April, and the winner will be revealed in May. Formerly known as the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, this award was established in 2012 by British writer Bernardine Evaristo and was recently passed on to the African Poetry Book Fund. With a decade long history and a 2022 inaugural contest cycle under a new title, the Evaristo Prize for African Poetry still seeks to “encourage a new generation of poets who might one day become an international presence.” The shortlist will be announced in April, and the winner will be revealed in May.