R. Kikuo Johnson receives the 2023 Whiting Award for fiction

Designer R.Kikuo Johnson (No one else) is a part of the 2023 cohort to obtain the Whiting Pricemaybe the primary cartoonist to take action.

R Kikuo Johnson self-portrait of his website

The Whiting Awards mentioned:

“The Whiting Basis is proud to announce the winners of the 2023 Whiting Awards, given yearly to 10 rising writers of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama. The prizes, $50,000 every, are primarily based on early accomplishments and the promise of nice work to come back.

R. Kikuo Johnson is already a multi-award profitable cartoonist and illustrator together with the 2021 graphic novel No one else (fantagraphies) obtained a 2022 Ignatz Award for Excellent Graphic Novel, an LA Instances E book Award, and a Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Award Honor E book. His different books embody evening fisherman (2005/reissued 2021 – Fantagraphics) and The king of sharks (2012, Toon Books). Moreover comics, he’s additionally a prolific editorial and promoting illustrator – notably offering covers for The New Yorker. He’s primarily based in Hawaii and New York.

Established in 1985, the annual Whiting Awards are devoted to rising expertise in fiction, non-fiction, theater and poetry. The trail to nomination may be very oblique – with an annual altering group of nameless people within the literary, retail, editorial or tutorial subject from throughout the US being invited to appoint candidates, with a further committee deciding on the winners.

The intention of the Whiting Awards, in response to their web site:

“We hope to determine excellent new writers who’ve but to make their mark in literary tradition. Though writers aren’t essentially younger (expertise can emerge at any age), the scholarship ideally gives recipients a primary alternative to commit themselves absolutely to writing, and the popularity has a major impression. Whiting’s laureates have received quite a few prestigious awards and fellowships, together with the Pulitzer Prize, Nationwide E book Prize, Nationwide E book Critics Circle Award, Obie Prize, and MacArthur, Guggenheim, and Lannan Fellowships, and their work has formed and made advancing literature on this nation over the previous three a long time. “

Different winners this yr embody Marcia Douglas, Sidik Fofan and Caribbean Fragoza for Fiction; Linda Kinstler and Stephania Taladrid for Nonfiction; Tommye Blount, Ama Codjoe and Emma Wippermann for Poetry; and Mia Chung for theatre.

A Former Comedian House Whiting Winner Is a Novelist Benjamin Percy (2008, Fiction), who has since written varied titles for the Massive Two – together with inexperienced arrow And Teen Titans for direct present, and Wolverine, X-Power, And ghost rider for Marvel.