News & Publications
Novelist Johnnie Receives Whiting Award
Salvatore Scibona (SF97) received the 2009 Whiting Writers’ Award on October 28 at a ceremony in New York City. This prestigious $50,000 award recognizes ten young writers for their extraordinary talent and promise and is one of the most coveted prizes for up and coming writers. These awards have been given annually since 1985 and past recipients include Michael Cunningham, Kim Edwards, Tobias Wolff, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Mary Karr – all winners before they were acclaimed, bestselling authors.
Scibona’s first book, The End, was the winner of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. Riverhead will publish the paperback in Fall 2009; French and German translations are forthcoming in 2010. Scibona’s work has been published in the New York Times, The Threepenny Review, and The Pushcart Book of Short Stories. After graduating from St. John’s, Scibona earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he administers the Writing Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center.