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10 writers win 2024 Whiting Awards for emerging authors

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10 writers win 2024 Whiting Awards for emerging authors
The 2024 Whiting Awards Winners

Ten emerging writers have won the 2024 Whiting Awards, announced in a ceremony Wednesday night.

Each writer will receive $50,000 to help support their craft — one of largest awards granted to new authors. A number of past Whiting winners have gone on to publish award-winning and bestselling works, including Hernan Diaz, Catherine Lacey, Colson Whitehead, Alice McDermott and Ocean Vuong. A few of this year’s winners have already made a name for themselves in the books world, too.

Courtney Hodell, Whiting’s director of literary programs, said in a statement: “This year’s winners have made liminal space their own — that place of potential that exists between states, whether those are genres, languages, countries, or definitions of self.”

Here are the 2024 Whiting Award Winners:

(with comments from the Whiting committee)

Aaliyah Bilal (fiction) whose short story collection Temple Folk “invites readers into a world whose complexity has been often overlooked, informing her explorations with a prickling specificity and psychological insight”

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Yoon Choi (fiction) whose “supple prose propels the reader through these unhurried, layered stories of the Korean diaspora, exploring the bonds and rifts between generations and the weight of secrets” in the work Skinship

Shayok Misha Chowdhury (drama) who “writes with ruthless splendor and inventiveness about the borders of language, sexuality, the public self and the hidden life,” including in Public Obscenities

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (drama) “whose meticulous and politically acute fables bring the histories of nations, of capital, and of censorship to life,” including in the trilogy The China Plays

Elisa Gonzalez (poetry) who uses The Iliad to examine her brothers death

Taylor Johnson (poetry) whose poems, including those in Inheritance, areof steely subtlety that sing of desire, a hunger for fresh language and forms”

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Gothataone Moeng (ficton) whose “nine big-hearted, capacious stories, rooted in the villages and cities of Botswana, examine all that blooms and breaks in the bonds, desires, and ambitions of women” in Call and Response

Charif Shanahan (poetry) whose Trace Evidence “sets out to discover how a person should live

Javier Zamora (nonfiction and poetry) who is the New York Times-bestselling writer of the memoir Solito and also the author of the “watchful, incantatory” collection of poems Unaccompanied. “His work transmutes testimony into art; whatever he turns his eye on next will also enlarge us”

Ada Zhang (fiction) whose “graceful, crystalline stories” in The Sorrows of Others “explore the paradox that historical silences and legacies of the past – in particular, the impact of the Cultural Revolution on Chinese Americans – can lead to new openings and new voices”

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Video: What the Texas Primary Battle Means for the Midterms

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Video: What the Texas Primary Battle Means for the Midterms

new video loaded: What the Texas Primary Battle Means for the Midterms

The first battle of the midterm elections will be the U.S. Senate primary in Texas. Our Texas bureau chief, David Goodman, explains why Democrats and Republicans across the U.S. are watching closely to see what happens in the state.

By J. David Goodman, Alexandra Ostasiewicz, June Kim and Luke Piotrowski

March 1, 2026

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Mass shooting at Austin, Texas bar leaves at least 3 dead, 14 wounded, authorities say

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Mass shooting at Austin, Texas bar leaves at least 3 dead, 14 wounded, authorities say

Gunfire rang out at a bar in Austin, Texas, early Sunday and at least three people were killed, the city’s police chief said.

Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters the shooter was killed by officers at the scene. 

Fourteen others were hospitalized and three were in critical condition, Austin-Travis County EMS Chief Robert Luckritz said.

“We received a call at 1:39 a.m. and within 57 seconds, the first paramedics and officers were on scene actively treating the patients,” Luckritz said.

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There was no initial word on the shooter’s identity or motive.

An Austin police officer guards the scene on West 6th Street at West Avenue after a shooting on Sunday, March 1, 2026, in Austin, Texas.

Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP


Davis noted how fortunate it was that there was a heavy police presence in Austin’s entertainment district at the time, enabling officers to respond quickly as bars were closing.

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“Officers immediately transitioned … and were faced with the individual with a gun,” Davis said. “Three of our officers returned fire, killing the suspect.”

She called the shooting a “tragic, tragic” incident.

Texas Bar Shooting

Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis provides a briefing after a shooting on Sunday, March 1, 2026, near West Sixth Street and Nueces in downtown Austin, Texas.

Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP


Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said his heart goes out to the victims, and he praised the swift response of first responders.

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“They definitely saved lives,” he said.

Davis said federal law enforcement is aiding the investigation.

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A long-buried recording and the Supreme Court of old (CT+) : Consider This from NPR

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A long-buried recording and the Supreme Court of old (CT+) : Consider This from NPR
Recently, movie critic Bob Mondello brought us a story about how he found a 63-year-old recording of his father arguing a case before the Supreme Court. The next day, he bumped into Nina Totenberg, NPR’s legal affairs correspondent, in the newsroom. They were talking so animatedly that we ushered them into a studio to continue the conversation.To unlock this and other bonus content — and listen to every episode sponsor-free — sign up for NPR+ at plus.npr.org. Regular episodes haven’t changed and remain available every weekday.Email us at considerthis@npr.org.
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