Rick Hilles, an acclaimed poet and assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University, was named one of 10 recipients of the 2008 Whiting Writer’s Awards given for “writers of exceptional talent and promise in early career.”
Hilles, author of the award-winning poetry collection Brother Salvage, will receive a $50,000 prize from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, based in New York. The awards were announced on Oct. 29.
“It means a great deal to me – more than I can adequately say – and I hope that this sense of gratitude and encouragement will stay with me for a long, long time,” Hilles said.
Hilles teaches poetry as part of the Vanderbilt English Department’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.
“Rick’s poetry moves and inspires readers, and he does the same in the classroom,” said Jay Clayton, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English and chair of the department. “There hasn’t been a better time for creative writing at Vanderbilt since the days of the Fugitive poets.”
The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation has awarded more than $6 million to 240 writers since its inception and given early recognition to artists including Denis Johnson, David Foster Wallace and Sarah Ruhl. The awards were announced at a ceremony at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.
Winners in addition to Hilles were Mischa Berlinski, fiction; Donovan Hohn, nonfiction; Douglas Kearney, poetry; Laley Khadivi, fiction; Manuel Muñoz, fiction; Dael Orlandersmith, plays; Benjamin Percy, fiction; John Sheehan, poetry; and Lysley Tenorio, fiction.
Whiting Writers’ Awards candidates are proposed by about a hundred anonymous nominators from across the country whose experience and vocations give them knowledge about individuals of extraordinary talent. Winners are chosen by a small anonymous selection committee of recognized writers, literary scholars, and editors, appointed annually by the foundation.
The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation was established in 1963 by Flora E. Whiting with a $10 million bequest. To learn more about the Whiting Foundation, got to www.whitingfoundation.org.
Media Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu