September 2010--Graywolf Press is pleased to announce that Tiphanie Yanique, author of How to Escape from a Leper Colony, has been named winner of a prestigious Rona Jaffe Writers' Award. The Rona Jaffe Foundation will honor its annual Writers' Awards winners at a private ceremony on September 23rd in New York City. Six emerging women writers, including Yanique, have been singled out for excellence by the Foundation and will receive awards of $25,000 each.

The other 2010 winners are Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, Rachel Aviv, Sara Elizabeth Johnson, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, and Laura Newbern. 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 more than $1 million to emergent women writers. Past recipients of the Writers’ Awards, such as Eula Biss, Judy Budnitz, Lan Samantha Chang, Kathleen Graber, Aryn Kyle, ZZ Packer, Julia Slavin, Tracy K. Smith, Mary Szybist, and Julia Whitty have since received wider critical recognition. In addition, several Rona Jaffe winners have had recent literary debuts: Elif Batuman, Carin Clevidence, Robin Ekiss, Rivka Galchen, Holly Goddard Jones, Lori Ostlund, and Melissa Range.

The six women will gather at the September 23rd Writers’ Awards ceremony in Manhattan. The guest speaker this year will be award-winning author Jane Brox. Her fourth book, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, has just been published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She is the author of three previous books: Clearing Land: Legacies of the American Farm; Five Thousand Days Like This One, which was a 1999 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction; and Here and Nowhere Else, which won the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award.

The evening 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. “Rona Jaffe has left a remarkable legacy,” says Beth McCabe, Director of the program. “Now celebrating our sixteenth year, we are seeing the impact of Rona’s vision and generosity. Most of our award winners are working to complete their first books and for many this will be the first opportunity in their careers to focus on their writing for an extended period. We have been able to encourage over 100 women to pursue their literary ambitions by offering encouragement and financial support at a critical time. This is what Rona Jaffe had always hoped to achieve with her program and it’s wonderful to see the impact it has had on these writers’ lives.”

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 $25,000. 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. The nominators and selectors serve anonymously. Beth McCabe directs the Writers’ Awards program. To learn more, visit http://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 over 100 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.