2017 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards – page 5

Contact:

Beth McCabe

The Rona Jaffe Foundation

www.ronajaffefoundation.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE RONA JAFFE FOUNDATION

CELEBRATES 23rd ANNUAL WRITERS’ AWARDS

Six outstanding emerging women writers will receive

Grants of $30,000 each at a New York City reception

Acclaimed writer Rivka Galchen will be Guest Speaker

New York City (September 2017) – The Rona Jaffe Foundation will honor its annual Writers’ Awards winners at a private ceremony on September 14th in New York City. Six emerging women writers have been singled out for excellence by the Foundation and will receive awards of $30,000 each. The 2017 winners are Aamina Ahmad, Ama Codjoe, Ebony Flowers, Tiana Nobile, Dominica Phetteplace, and Shawna Kay Rodenberg. The program—the only national literary awards program of its kind devoted exclusively to women—was created by celebrated novelist Rona Jaffe to identify and support women writers of unusual talent and promise in the early stages of their writing careers. Ms. Jaffe passed away in 2005.

The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards are given to writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Since the program began in 1995, the Foundation has awarded over $2 million to emergent women writers. Past recipients of the Writers’ Awards, such as Rachel Aviv, Elif Batuman, Eula Biss, Sarah Braunstein, Lan Samantha Chang, Vievee Francis, Rivka Galchen, Aryn Kyle, ZZ Packer, Helen Phillips, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Namwali Serpell, Solmaz Sharif, Tracy K. Smith, Mary Syzbist, and Tiphanie Yanique have since received wider critical recognition, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and the Whiting Writer’s Award.

On Friday, September 15 at 7 p.m. the winners will read in New York University’s Creative Writing Program Reading Series at the Vernon Writers House (58 West 10th Street).

Biographies of the 2017 Award Winners:

Aamina Ahmad’s (Fiction) novel in progress, The Walled City, part crime novel/part family saga, is set primarily in 1960s Pakistan within the ancient walled city of Lahore, where a police detective is investigating the suspicious death of a prostitute. Her nominator writes, “Depth of characterization, the great attraction of her stories, turns revelatory at novel-length: its source is a spectacularly undeluded empathy. A brave, disciplined, and unconventional mind is at work.” Ms. Ahmad is also working on a collection of stories. Her work has appeared in Ecotone, The Missouri Review, and The Normal School, among other publications. She has received notable mentions in the Best American Short Stories and Best American Nonrequired Reading anthologies. Raised in England, she received her B.A. and M.A. from London University. She also studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she received her M.F.A. in 2013. She completed a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University in 2017. Her Writer’s Award will cover living expenses and child care over the next year as well as underwrite an essential trip to Pakistan. It will also provide her with the necessary time to finish her novel. Ms. Ahmad lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and two children.
Ama Codjoe (Poetry) is completing her first collection of poems, Iterations of Being, which investigates familial legacies and histories through subjects such as domestic violence, fertility, puberty, sexual desire, and memory. “These poems, much like graffiti, aim to constitute a type of marking that says, ‘I am’ or ‘I am here.’ I hope this work will testify and insist on my existence as a black woman and acknowledge the people and histories I rely on to survive.” Ms. Codjoe received her B.A. from Brown University, her M.F.A. in dance from Ohio State University, and her M.F.A in poetry from New York University. She has been awarded support from the Saltonstall Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, Cave Canem Foundation, and Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. Her poems have appeared in Narrative, The Georgia Review, Four Way Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. She currently consults for DreamYard Project in the South Bronx, where she was an educator and administrator for over ten years. She will use her Writer’s Award to defray living expenses over the next year in order to focus on her collection. She says, “The crossroads is a place as frightening as it is beautiful. At this critical juncture in my career, the award will enable me to create a path for myself as a writer.” Ms. Codjoe lives in New York City.
Ebony Flowers (Fiction/Nonfiction) is a writer and cartoonist whose comic narratives lie at the intersection of family, place, and belonging. She is currently working on two projects. 4a/b is a collection of short-form comics that tells stories about Black hair through fiction, creative nonfiction, and parody hair advertisements. She says, “Black hair is an intimate experience based upon the familial touch of a mother, friend, or neighbor's hands while punctuated by the vestiges of racism.” Her long-form fiction comic, Shannon O’, which has appeared in the Nashville Review, is loosely based on the Baltimore neighborhood, Fairfield, where her mother grew up and she visited regularly as a child. It explores the everyday life of women in this fictionalized tight-knit community. Her nominator says, “She is inventing something of great importance in terms of comics. Ebony Flowers really is a genius. I believe she is going to change the game in terms of graphic narrative.” Ms. Flowers received her B.A. from the University of Maryland College Park and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She wrote her dissertation as a comic. At UW-Madison, Ms. Flowers was a researcher at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery’s Image Lab and a founding member of the Applied Comics Kitchen. Next year, Ms. Flowers will be a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto. She plans to use her Writer’s Award to focus more on her fiction and creative nonfiction comic projects, as well as take research trips and attend comics festivals. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband and cat.

Tiana Nobile’s (Poetry) first poetry collection, Harlow’s Monkey, explores and grapples with the history of adoption, both her own from South Korea and the broader, collective experience. She says, “As a child I was unable to discuss the complicated nature of how a family like ours was formed, the history left behind and how to negotiate that loss. Through the act of writing my manuscript, I've finally given myself permission to explore the complexities of adoption, dislocation, and familial love.” Ms. Nobile was an elementary teacher in the New Orleans public schools for several years and is now a teaching artist and arts coach in the schools for KID smART. She received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, her M.A.T. from the University of New Orleans in elementary and special education, and her M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College in 2017. Her poems have appeared in Antenna, The Collagist, and PHANTOM, among others, and she is a recipient of a Kundiman fellowship. She plans to use her Writer’s Award to return to South Korea for the first time since her adoption and to take time to continue her work on her first collection. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.


Dominica Phetteplace’s (Fiction) novel in progress, Project Empathy, is a moving, deep, and humorous mix of the real and speculative worlds made intimate and smart. She says, “My novel is set in a near future San Francisco that is inhabited solely by billionaires and their servants. It tells the story of a friendship between two women from impoverished backgrounds who have had computer chips implanted in their heads so that they may provide better service as waitresses. Both are determined to make better lives for themselves in an oppressive surveillance economy.” Ms. Phetteplace received her B.A. in mathematics from UC Berkeley. She has been awarded support from the MacDowell Colony, the Barbara Deming Foundation, and I Park. Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Zyzzyva, and Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017. She has received a Pushcart Prize and honorable mentions from the Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy and Best American Short Stories anthologies. Ms. Phetteplace has been working as a math and computer science teacher, but she plans to use her Writer’s Award to support her living expenses for the next year so she can focus on finishing her novel. She lives in Oakland, California.

Shawna Kay Rodenberg (Nonfiction) is a 10th-generation Appalachian from Kentucky. Her parents became deeply involved in a wilderness community in northern Minnesota, where her family lived for seven years. With a singular voice and clear-eyed intensity, her coming-of-age memoir explores this time as well as the isolation and difficulties her family faced upon their return home to the insular mountains of Kentucky. She says, “The book is still taking shape, but some recurrent themes are already visible: the astounding cost of both belief and disbelief in America, the vulnerability of the working poor, and the magic two-sided antidote to all of the above—learning to abandon fear and embrace the self and the greater world.” Ms. Rodenberg received her nursing degree from New Hampshire Technical Institute, her B.A. from the University of Southern Indiana, and her M.F.A. from Bennington College. She now teaches English at a small community and technical college in eastern Kentucky. Her essays have been published in The Village Voice, Salon, and Consequence Magazine and she has completed a poetry manuscript entitled Black Magic Gun. Her Writer’s Award will allow her to teach less, focus on her memoir, and take related research trips. She lives in Evansville, Indiana, with her husband and five children.

The six women will gather at the September 14th Writers’ Awards ceremony in Manhattan. Acclaimed writer Rivka Galchen will speak at the celebration. She is a regular contributor of fiction and essays to The New Yorker, Harper's, The London Review of Books and The New York Times Book Review, and was named to The New Yorker's list of 20 Writers Under 40. She is the prize-winning author of three books: the novel Atmospheric Disturbances (FSG, 2008), the short story collection American Innovations (FSG, 2014) and the miscellany Little Labors (New Directions, 2016). Ms. Galchen received a 2006 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award.

The awards celebration provides the Foundation with an ideal opportunity to introduce its honorees to friends and colleagues in the publishing industry. Some recipients have been introduced to their future agents and editors through the awards.

“Our award winners this year are an exciting and talented group of women writers. Their writing is thrilling, challenging, and engaging,” says Beth McCabe, Director of the Writers’ Awards program. “Each is working in her own vein but tapping into the universal threads and truths that define much of our existence—family, memory, history and self determination. This year we are also recognizing our first writer working in graphic narrative. We are very pleased to be supporting work in this form. And, finally, we are delighted to have past recipient Rivka Galchen (RJF 2006) address the next class of Rona Jaffe winners at this year’s awards ceremony. A wonderful and meaningful camaraderie has developed among our grantees over the years. They support and champion one another in their literary lives and endeavors. It is heartening and satisfying to know that Rona’s program has provided not only financial support but also inspiration for the women who have been selected over the years.”


ABOUT THE AWARDS PROGRAM: The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards program identifies emergent women writers of exceptional promise. The Foundation recognizes that women writers make special contributions to our culture and, through the Writers’ Awards program, tries to address the difficulties that some of the most talented among them have in finding time to write and gaining recognition. Women who write fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry are considered for the program’s grants of $30,000. Awards are given to those in the early stages of their writing careers whose published or unpublished work reveals accomplishment and demonstrates a commitment to writing. Nominations of candidates are solicited from writers, editors, critics, and other literary professionals who are likely to encounter women writers of unusual talent. (Direct applications and unsolicited nominations are not accepted by the Foundation.) A selection committee is appointed each year to recommend awards from among the nominees. Nominators and selectors serve anonymously. Beth McCabe directs the Writers’ Awards program. To learn more, visit www.ronajaffefoundation.org.

ABOUT RONA JAFFE: Rona Jaffe (1931-2005) established The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards program in 1995. It is the only national literary awards program of its kind dedicated to supporting women writers exclusively. Since the program began, the Foundation has awarded grants to 146 outstanding women. Ms. Jaffe was the author of sixteen books, including Class Reunion, Family Secrets, The Road Taken, and The Room-Mating Season (2003). Her 1958 best-selling first novel, The Best of Everything, was reissued by Penguin in 2005.

NOTE: Photographs of the recipients of the 2017 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards are available upon request.