Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas
We are pleased to announce that two recent Brevity contributors, Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas and Danielle Geller, have been awarded 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Awards, given annually to six women writers who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their careers.
Cabeza-Vanegas’ brief nonfiction essay “Pain Pays The Income of Each Precious Thing” appeared in Brevity’s 50th issue. Geller’s piece “Blood; Quantum” appears in our most recent, 53rd issue.
Danielle Geller
Celebrating its 22nd year, the Rona Jaffe Awards have helped many women build successful writing careers by offering encouragement and financial support at a critical time. The awards are $30,000 each and will be presented to the six recipients on September 15th in New York City.
The other recipients this year are Jamey Hatley (fiction), Ladee Hubbard (fiction), Airea D. Matthews (poetry), and Asako Serizawa (fiction).
Celebrated novelist Rona Jaffe (1931-2005) established The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards program in 1995. It is the only national literary awards program of its kind dedicated to supporting women writers exclusively. Since the program began, the Foundation has awarded more than $2 million to emergent women writers, including several who have gone on to critical acclaim, such as Elif Batuman, Eula Biss, Lan Samantha Chang, Rivka Galchen, Rebecca Lee, ZZ Packer, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Tracy K. Smith, Mary Szybist, and Tiphanie Yanique.
