Will Arbery, whose play Heroes of the Fourth Turning received a critically acclaimed world premiere at Playwrights Horizons last fall, is a 2020 Whiting Award winner. The award is given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, with each recipient awarded $50,000.

Arbery's other plays include Plano, seen Off-Broadway, Evanston Salt Costs Climbing, and Wheelchair. He is a member of New Dramatists and an alum of SPACE on Ryder Farm, Page 73’s Interstate 73, Colt Coeur, Youngblood, and Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers Group.

The playwright is the single drama recipient this year in a pool of winners that also includes fiction writers Genevieve Sly Crane, Andrea Lawlor, and Ling Ma, nonfiction writers Jaquira Díaz and Jia Tolentino, and poets Aria Aber, Diannely Antigua, Jake Skeets, and Genya Turovskaya.

Usually celebrated in a ceremony, this year's event has been postponed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Whiting Foundation will celebrate the winners once restrictions on public gatherings have been lifted.

The Whiting Award was established in 1985 by the Whiting Foundation. The awards are based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. Last year's Drama winners were Michael R. Jackson and Lauren Yee, and the 2018 winners were Antoinette Nwandu, Hansol Jung, and Nathan Alan Davis.

For more information visit Whiting.org.