The Whiting Foundation announced the 10 winners of their 2026 Whiting Award for emerging writers on Wednesday night.
The esteemed early-career honor— which comes with a $50,000 prize — is given to writers "in recognition of their outstanding accomplishments and promise," according to the foundation.
Since 1985, the foundation has awarded emerging authors with the prize in hopes of providing a launchpad for their literary success.
Past winners include now-renowned authors Colson Whitehead, Ocean Vuong, Tony Kushner, Catherine Lacey, Alice McDermott, and Ling Ma — who have gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and Tony Awards for their writing.
Whiting Award winners generally aren't household names yet, and that's kind of the point. The $50,000 boost offers each 2026 recipient a chance to continue honing their craft, which the foundation says offers "a kaleidoscopic view of this moment — from the human cost of AI to the poetry of displacement, from Detroit to Kabul to the stage."
This year's 10 emerging authors also presented a kaleidoscope of genres to judges: nonfiction, fiction, poetry and drama.
Here are the winners of the 2026 Whiting Award:
(with commentary from the Whiting judging committee)
Negar Azimi (Nonfiction)
Azimi "explores how individuals inhabit history and how history lives through them" in her work, which includes projects like Bidoun. The judging committee says Azimi "weaves together memory, place, and exile to create a compelling story of heartbreak; a story of the lives we lead and the many more we do not."
Elaine Castillo (Fiction)
Elaine Castillo, author of the 2025 book MODERATION and her 2018 debut novel America is Not the Heart, "deftly translates worlds into words." The judging committee says "her work is brave and demanding, grounding our sense of present and future, while her sharp observations make us laugh, question and regret, and offer a delicious modern critique of unhinged times."
Karen Hao (Nonfiction)
Hao is an award-winning journalist who authored the 2025 book Empire of AI. The judging committee says her work "offers a clarifying perspective amid the AI mania and lays bare the profit-seeking egos driving it." They add that "her writing is lucid and tenacious, revealing the hubris and moral bankruptcy of those who seek to alter the fabric of human existence."
Hajar Hussaini (Poetry)
The author of Disbound: Poems writes poetry that "propels readers to consider what war destroys and what remains." The judging committee says her poems show how "fragments can contain the entirety of times, places, and people we thought lost."
Hilary Leichter (Fiction)
The author of the 2020 debut novel Temporary and 2023's Terrace Story, "traces post-pandemic loss to our upended present." The judging committee says "her writing is assured and radiant with a fluid imagination that shapes lush worlds, at once uncanny and beautiful."
Lara Mimosa Montes (Fiction)
The author of The Time of the Novel (2025), THRESHOLES (2020) and The Somnambulist (2016) "adeptly slows time to explore interiority and liminal territories." The judging committee says her work is "formally innovative, playing with the possibilities of narration, while being fully tangible and present."
Brittany Rodgers (Poetry)
Rodgers, whose poetry of place "glows with profound intimacy and care for the communities she calls kin," writes with an unabashed celebration of place, a home for motherhood, matrilineal struggle, kink, and the pastoral.
Alison C. Rollins (Poetry)
The author of the 2019 collection Library of Small Catastrophes and 2024's Black Bell writes poetry that "possesses a familiarity across literary traditions," infusing it with depth and striking immediacy. The judging committee says "her painstaking research closes the gap between past and future, contributing to a new way of seeing."
Celine Song (Drama)
The screenwriter and director of the 2025 film Materialists and the 2023 romantic drama Past Lives "pushes the bounds of theater with her moving excavation of humanity and love." The judging committee says "she peels away historical narrative, challenging audiences to explore what stories remain below the surface, what art is staged, and who gets to tell the story on their own terms."
Carvell Wallace (Nonfiction)
The author of the 2024 memoir Another Word for Love writes work that is at once "revelatory and discreet." The judging committee says it is a testament to "radical care, practicing vulnerability to transform ache and memory into tenderness." They add the book is about "coming to terms with the odds and surviving them with grace, radiance, generosity, and spirit."
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