Whiting Award Winners

Denis Johnson's short story collection about the ghosts of the past and the mysteries of the universe is one of ten books named by the Chicago Tribune as the year's best.

The list of the ten best titles of 2018 includes How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee, Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday, and The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson.

Brown discusses his literary touchstones, the best advice he's ever received, and the importance of discipline.

Phillip B. Williams reflects on the life and work of poet Ai in Poetry magazine, writing that "Ai wears masks to unveil a truer, darker, more visceral version of the world and from that darkness we discover the effacement of our own masks." 

"These towns are nothing but petri dishes, and we’re nothing but flowers of exotic mold. Endlessly customized achievement modules," writes Jess Row, in a new story for Granta about robots and capitalism. "We’re the event horizon of commodified childhood."

Phillips explores the history of the Gougoltz, hotelier who helped birth clay-court tennis, in the Paris Review, writing that "everything Gougoltz had done in Cannes was synchronized with the birth and rise of tennis. He just hadn’t known it." 

In the New Yorker, Chiasson writes of Plath's letter to her former psychiatrist. He notes that "as her letters, more than any other documents, reveal, Plath monitored life from behind a façade of chipper enthusiasm. Her genius took shape hidden by this screen." 

Hayes and Smith are the two Americans on the shortlist, whose collections Chair Sinéad Morrissey said "offer an invigorated language, confident mastery of form, and fresh, sophisticated perspectives on our uncertain times." 

"He has a good memory, but a better imagination," the reviewer writes of Hayes, "and that allows him to imagine a better future, despite what he remembers of the past." The piece praises the strength of the language used in the collection.

In the Kenyon Review, Sherwin Bitsui shares two poems from his new collection. "Bluing under a dimming North Star,/ the Reservation’s ghost/ paws cartilage pincered from a digital cloud," he writes.

The New York Times calls Wray's new novel, about a Californian teen girl who becomes embroiled in the frontlines of war in Afghanistan, " a significant literary performance."

"I think the mind is more flexible and responsive to a word’s textures and potential when you can step away from monolingualism," muses Kane in an interview about the Inupiaq community, myth, and what makes a poem seem personal.

On Poets.org, Major Jackson writes about poet Ai's "dedication to both her aesthetic and ethical vision," and how she inspired a generation of poets.

"If you ask me, I’ll say no, Thank you, I don’t need to watch what goes/ Only imagining itself seen," writes Jericho Brown, in a poem published by The New Republic. 

Offutt delves into his writing process, Appalachian culture, and why  "writing fiction is the best way I’ve found to quell the restlessness of my mind."

Lacey remarks on returning home to Mississippi and, with it, the white women who wear heels to football games and a "particular brand of Southern femininity," for The Believer. " I do not love," she writes, "the place I am obliged to call home." 

Wang's story "What Terrible Thing It Was" is featured in the anthology, edited by Roxane Gay, alongside work by Emma Cline, Curtis Sittenfeld, and more.

In the Guardian, Smith talks about why she "can't stop thinking about" Deana Lawson's photography, the McCarthy-era opera that is a "a powerful vehicle for these feelings of being found and seen and ratified by love," and other works of art she's been inspired by.

In Ploughshares, an essay on the use of form in Terrance Hayes's American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassins argues, "Tonally dynamic and sonically pleasing, these poems insist there’s no difference between high and low diction/culture/art, especially when you’re writing for your life." 

Laurentiis shares his recommendations for Frank Bidart's "Ellen West," mixed media artist Devan Shimoyama, television show "Feud: Bette and Joan," and more.

Tracy K. Smith discusses parallels between poetry and the Bible, such as metaphor, and says that "poetry is one of the languages that puts us in touch with our higher selves."