Contributor Chosen for Whiting Award

Daniel Alarcon, whose short story “Lima, Peru July 28, 1979” appeared in VQR’s “New Luminaries” Summer 2004 issue, has been named one of ten recipients of the 2004 Whiting Writers’ Awards given by the The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. The awards, which are $35,000 each, have been given annually since 1985 to emerging writers of exceptional talent and promise. Past winners have included August Wilson, Tobias Wolff, Ian Frazier, Alice McDermott, Tony Kushner, and Marianne Wiggins.

Alarcon’s first published short story, “City of Clowns,” appeared in The New Yorker “Debut Fiction” issue in 2003. His short story, “Lima, Peru July 28, 1979” will be reprinted in Harper’s in November. Both stories will be included in his forthcoming collection, War by Candlelight, which HarperCollins will publish in April 2005. Some of these stories are set in a Peru roiled by political and social strife; others are set in New York, where Mr. Alarcon taught in the New York City public schools.