Winners of the 2026 Whiting Awards
The Whiting Basis
conceal caption
toggle caption
The Whiting Basis
The Whiting Basis introduced the ten winners of their 2026 Whiting Award for rising writers on Wednesday night time.
The esteemed early-career honor— which comes with a $50,000 prize — is given to writers “in recognition of their excellent accomplishments and promise,” in response to the inspiration.
Since 1985, the inspiration has awarded rising authors with the prize in hopes of offering a launchpad for his or her literary success.
Previous winners embody now-renowned authors Colson Whitehead, Ocean Vuong, Tony Kushner, Catherine Lacey, Alice McDermott, and Ling Ma — who’ve gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes, Nationwide E book Awards, and Tony Awards for his or her writing.
Whiting Award winners typically aren’t family names but, and that is type of the purpose. The $50,000 increase provides every 2026 recipient an opportunity to proceed honing their craft, which the inspiration says provides “a kaleidoscopic view of this second — from the human value of AI to the poetry of displacement, from Detroit to Kabul to the stage.”
This 12 months’s 10 rising authors additionally offered a kaleidoscope of genres to judges: nonfiction, fiction, poetry and drama.
Listed here are the winners of the 2026 Whiting Award:
(with commentary from the Whiting judging committee)
Negar Azimi (Nonfiction)
Azimi “explores how people inhabit historical past and the way historical past lives via them” in her work, which incorporates initiatives like Bidoun. The judging committee says Azimi “weaves collectively reminiscence, place, and exile to create a compelling story of heartbreak; a narrative of the lives we lead and the various extra we don’t.”
Elaine Castillo (Fiction)
Elaine Castillo, creator of the 2025 e book MODERATION and her 2018 debut novel America is Not the Coronary heart, “deftly interprets worlds into phrases.” The judging committee says “her work is courageous and demanding, grounding our sense of current and future, whereas her sharp observations make us snigger, query and remorse, and supply a scrumptious trendy critique of unhinged occasions.”
Karen Hao (Nonfiction)
Hao is an award-winning journalist who authored the 2025 e book Empire of AI. The judging committee says her work “provides a clarifying perspective amid the AI mania and lays naked the profit-seeking egos driving it.” They add that “her writing is lucid and tenacious, revealing the hubris and ethical chapter of those that search to change the material of human existence.”
Hajar Hussaini (Poetry)
The creator of Disbound: Poems writes poetry that “propels readers to contemplate what battle destroys and what stays.” The judging committee says her poems present how “fragments can comprise the whole lot of occasions, locations, and other people we thought misplaced.”
Hilary Leichter (Fiction)
The creator of the 2020 debut novel Momentary and 2023’s Terrace Story, “traces post-pandemic loss to our upended current.” The judging committee says “her writing is assured and radiant with a fluid creativeness that shapes lush worlds, without delay uncanny and exquisite.”
Lara Mimosa Montes (Fiction)
The creator of The Time of the Novel (2025), THRESHOLES (2020) and The Somnambulist (2016) “adeptly slows time to discover interiority and liminal territories.” The judging committee says her work is “formally modern, enjoying with the probabilities of narration, whereas being absolutely tangible and current.”
Brittany Rodgers (Poetry)
Rodgers, whose poetry of place “glows with profound intimacy and take care of the communities she calls kin,” writes with an unabashed celebration of place, a house for motherhood, matrilineal wrestle, kink, and the pastoral.
Alison C. Rollins (Poetry)
The creator of the 2019 assortment Library of Small Catastrophes and 2024’s Black Bell writes poetry that “possesses a familiarity throughout literary traditions,” infusing it with depth and placing immediacy. The judging committee says “her painstaking analysis closes the hole between previous and future, contributing to a brand new approach of seeing.”
Celine Tune (Drama)
The screenwriter and director of the 2025 movie Materialists and the 2023 romantic drama Previous Lives “pushes the bounds of theater along with her shifting excavation of humanity and love.” The judging committee says “she peels away historic narrative, difficult audiences to discover what tales stay beneath the floor, what artwork is staged, and who will get to inform the story on their very own phrases.”
Carvell Wallace (Nonfiction)
The creator of the 2024 memoir One other Phrase for Love writes work that’s without delay “revelatory and discreet.” The judging committee says it’s a testomony to “radical care, practising vulnerability to rework ache and reminiscence into tenderness.” They add the e book is about “coming to phrases with the chances and surviving them with grace, radiance, generosity, and spirit.”
