Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers
The 2010 Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers is awarded to Joanna Smith Rakoff for her debut novel, A Fortunate Age.
Joanna Smith Rakoff is the author of the novel A Fortunate Age, which was a New York Times Editors' Pick, a winner of the Elle Readers' Prize, a selection of Barnes and Noble's First Look Book Club, an IndieNext pick, and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. As a journalist and critic, she's written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post Book World, the Boston Globe, Vogue, Time Out New York, O:The Oprah Magazine, and many other newspapers and magazines. Her poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, Western Humanities Review, Kenyon Review, and other journals. She has degrees from Columbia University, University College, London, and Oberlin College.
The judges for the prize included Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season; Mark Oppenheimer, memoirist and religion columnist for the New York Times; and Irina Reyn, 2009 Goldberg Prize winner for What Happened to Anna K.
Overview
Established in 1999 and supported through a generous grant from the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Foundation, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers is among the very first of its kind to highlight new works by contemporary writers exploring Jewish themes.
The prize spotlights promising new talent, and is awarded to an American fiction writer for a first or second full-length work that was published in the previous calendar year. Submissions must be made by the publisher.
The award includes a prize of $2,500, as well as a one-week residency at Ledig House International Writers Colony in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Eligibility
Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States. International students cannot be granted fellowships at this time. Previous grantees of the Goldberg Prize may not reapply.
Applications must be submitted directly by publishers. We cannot accept submissions from individual authors.
We will not consider any self-published or print-on-demand books (including but not limited to books created by iUniverse, AuthorHouse etc.).
Guidelines and Application
Grants are awarded on a competitive basis and are recommended by a panel of writers, publishers and other literary professionals.
Click here to download this year's application.
Deadline
The deadline for applying to the 2010 prize is Monday, March 1st, 2010.
Previous Panelists
The panelists for 2010 included:
- Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season
- Mark Oppenheimer, memoirist and religion columnist for the New York Times
- Irina Reyn, 2009 Goldberg Prize winner for What Happened to Anna K.
Previous Grantees
The 2009 prize was awarded to Irina Reyn for her 2008 book, What Happened to Anna K. (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster). Irina is the editor of Living on the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take on the Garden State (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster). Her work has appeared in One Story, Post Road, Tin House, Los Angeles Times, Town & Country Travel, The Forward, Nextbook, Ballyhoo Stories, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Moscow Times. Irina was born in Moscow and currently divides her time between Pittsburgh, PA and Brooklyn, NY. She is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
The 2008 prize was awarded to Anya Ulinich for her debut novel Petropolis. Ulinich was also chosen by the National Book Award foundation as a "5 Under 35" awardee. The book is about Sasha Goldberg, a biracial, Jewish, socially maladjusted "child of the intelligentsia" from the Siberian town Asbestos 2. When following her heart gets her into trouble at home, Sasha leaves Russia as a mail-order bride and, with the help of the Kupid's Korner Agency, lands in suburban Arizona. Soon, she escapes her fiance and embarks on a misadventure-filled journey across America in search of her father.
For a complete list of past grantees and their books, click here.
For further information about this prize, please contact Paul Zakrzewski, program officer for literature and scholarship, at pzak@jewishculture.org.
Program Funder
The Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers is made possible through a generous endowment and annual support of the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Foundation, Inc.