Orange County writer Yoon Choi was named one of 10 winners of the 2024 Whiting Awards on Wednesday, a prize that recognizes emerging writers and comes with a $50,000 check.
Choi, who lives in Anaheim with her family, is the author of the 2021 short story collection “Skinship.” Its stories were inspired by Choi’s personal history as an immigrant from South Korea, and a mother of four first-generation Korean American children.
The Whiting Award judges wrote of Choi that her “supple prose propels the reader through these unhurried, layered stories of the Korean diaspora, exploring the bonds and rifts between generations and the weight of secrets.”
Choi was joined in the awards for fiction by three other writers of short story collections: Aaliyah Bilal, author of “Temple Folk,” Gothataone Moeng, author of “Call and Response,” and Ada Zhang, author of “The Sorrows of Others.”
The sole non-fiction writer honored by the Whiting Foundation was Javier Zamora for his memoir “Solita.” Zamora was also a Whiting winner for poetry for the collection “Unaccompanied.” Other poetry honorees included Elisa Gonzalez for “Grand Tour,” Taylor Johnson for “Inheritance,” and Charif Shanahan for “Trace Evidence.”
Two playwrights won Whitings in drama. Shayok Misha Chowdhury wrote the play “Public Obscenities,” while Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is the author of the trilogy “The China Plays.”
