Nov. 20, 2003

Graduate of VCU creative writing program receives Whiting Writers' Award

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By Malorie Burkett

Agymah Kamau, a 1992 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University's Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing, is one of 10 recipients of the Whiting Writers' Awards -- given to encourage exceptionally promising emerging talent in works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and play writing.

Kamau, was selected for his fictional novels, "Flickering Shadows," published in 1996 and "Pictures of a Dying Man," published in 1999.

"It's gratifying, of course, to have one's work recognized by an institution as prestigious as the Whiting Foundation," said Kamau. "It gives me the encouragement to press on knowing that someone out there appreciates what I'm doing."

Presented by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the award includes a monetary prize of $35,000. Recipients are chosen by a committee of writers, literary scholars and editors appointed annually by the Foundation.

This year's recipients included five fiction writers, one writer of fiction and nonfiction, two nonfiction writers, one poet and one playwright. Along with Kamau, winners included Courtney Angela Brkic, Alexander Chee, Christopher Cokinos, Trudy Dittmar, Major Jackson, Ann Pancake, Lewis Robinson, Jess Row and Sarah Ruhl.

Kamau is assistant professor of English at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Ok. His first novel, "Flickering Shadows," was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. In addition, it received the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award and was listed among the Library Journal's Top 20 novels of 1996. Honors for his second novel, "Pictures of a Dying Man," include Virginia's 1999 Literary Award for fiction, ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year award, and one of the Village Voice's best 25 books of 1999. Kamau is now working on his third novel.

The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation was established in 1963 by Flora E. Whiting in 1963. In 1972, her unrestricted donation of over $10 million enabled the Foundation to establish the Whiting Fellowships in the Humanities for doctoral candidates in their dissertation year. The Foundation created the Whiting Writers' Awards in 1985 under the direction of Gerald Freund, who organized and led the program until his death in 1997.