Novelist and memoirist Donald Windam is about to become some writers' favorite author. His and his partner's estate has established an annual literary prize administered by Yale, awarding $150,000 to seven to nine writers of fiction, nonfiction, or plays. The first of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes will be given in 2013. The NYT reports:
"The judging for the new prizes will happen in two stages, Mr. Kokot explained: a steering committee will solicit recommendations from a group of nominators, and the final selection will be made by a panel consisting of Mr. Kokot; Jeffrey Peabody, his co-executor; and two longtime friends of Mr. Windham, Robert A, Wilson, a rare-book dealer, and Bruce Kellner, a retired English professor. They will be aided by a group of additional judges. The prizes are meant to reward both established and promising writers, and Mr. Windham, who never went to college himself, specifically requested that writers with no academic affiliation be considered."
Windham's best available books are the wonderful short novel Two People
about a middle-aged American man's romance with an Italian 17 year-old lad, and his memoir Lost Friendships: A Memoir of Truman Capote Tennessee Williams and Others. Needless to say, these were never huge bestsellers so you might ask, how did two men who lived so modestly leave an estate able to dole out a million dollars a year in prize money? Inheritance, investing, and a very simple lifestyle. Carl Van Vechten photographed the couple in 1955. Click to enlarge.
For comparison, the Whiting Awards annually give ten writers $50,000. The Bolligen Prize, given every other year, awards $100,000 to one poet.
1949: Tanaquil Le Clercq, Windham, Buffie Johnson, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal
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