The Golden Age of Nonfiction: Courtney Hodell on the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant

It’s a golden age for nonfiction, but what writers have gained in imaginative freedom they sometimes pay for in the long and demanding road to the finish. The new Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant awards $40,000 to writers at any career stage for the completion of a deeply researched, imaginatively composed work of nonfiction for a general audience.

The grant is intended to give writers the funding to do extra research or spend more time on the writing—whatever will help them craft a book that will be read for years to come. The foundation casts its net widely, reflecting the expansive character of the genre: history, cultural or political reportage, biography, memoir, the sciences, philosophy, criticism, and personal essays are eligible, and in the last two years the grant has been awarded to such stellar talents as Sarah Broom, Phillip Gourevitch, Meghan O’Rourke, Pacifique Irankunda, Sarah Ruden, and John Jeremiah Sullivan.

I sat down with , Director of Writers’ Programs at the Whiting Foundation, to talk by May 2.)