The Whiting Foundation has announced its 2020 Literary Magazine Prize awardees.
Today, the Whiting Foundation announced the five print and digital winners for its third annual Literary Magazine Prizes. Since launching in 2018, the Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes seek to recognize, reward, and support publications that actively nurture writers who produce extraordinary work. A total of thirteen literary magazines have won this prize for excellence in publishing.
The five 2020 winners were selected from more than 100 applicants. Each awardee will receive time with an expert fundraising consultant and other professional development support throughout the year. The winners, and their statements in response to the prize, are below.
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2020 Literary Magazine Prize Winners
One Story ($60,000)
One Story is honored to be recognized by the Whiting Foundation. This award will greatly increase our ability to support our community of readers and writers, while also helping us to widen our reach and bring new voices to our pages. We’re grateful for this opportunity, and look forward to continuing our work expanding the readership, creation, impact and value of short stories in the world.
Conjunctions ($30,000)
The 2020 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize could not have come at a more significant time for Conjunctions, which will be celebrating its fortieth anniversary in the coming year. The pandemic has inflicted unprecedented challenges on all of us, including literary journals and writers, and thanks to the Whiting Foundation, Conjunctions will be able to continue publishing both our print and online journals without interruption. This grant will enable us to broaden and deepen our ongoing search for innovative poetry, fiction, essays, and multi-genre works by those who write fearlessly, and greatly strengthen our outreach to those who, as we at Conjunctions like to say, read dangerously.
Kweli ($30,000)
Since its launch in 2009, Kweli has championed Indigenous writers and writers of color and created opportunities for their essential voices to be heard and recognized. The generous support of the Whiting Literary Magazine Prize will help us further amplify the prose, poetry, and art from marginalized communities of color at a critical time. Over the years, Kweli has expanded its digital reach through a range of community programming and the Whiting Foundation will allow Kweli to continue that growth, widening its readership and outreach, as well as help the organization meet the challenges and opportunities in creating a sustainable path forward.
Foglifter ($15,000)
As a literary journal by, of, and for queer and trans literary artists, Foglifter has spent the last four years carving out a space for LGBTQ+ authors in the literary landscape, while centering its most marginalized voices whose works challenge mainstream concepts of culture, race, gender, sexuality, and class to authentically reflect the experiences of queer and trans people. Foglifter is thrilled by the committed support and recognition of the Whiting Foundation—it will expand our reach, fortify our sustainability, and allows us to focus on strengthening Foglifter’s community of LGBTQ+ writers.
Nat. Brut Magazine ($9,000)
For Nat. Brut, winning a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize means that even more readers get to encounter the brilliant and vital work of our contributors and editors. Because we are committed to maintaining a sustainable growth model and remaining free and accessible to people of all social, economic, and academic backgrounds, we are slowly moving toward financial solvency each year as more and more content makes it to print. The Whiting Grant has dramatically accelerated this process.
