CLAUDIA RANKINE

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ “The Love Songs of W.

The poet, activist and educator Sonia Sanchez is this year’s winner of the Edward MacDowell Medal, a lifetime achievement honor started in 1960 and previously given to Robert Frost, Toni Morrison and Stephen Sondheim among others.

Joni Mitchell has received honorary membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the century old institution where general inductees have ranged from Henry James and Georgia O’Keeffe to Sonny Rollins and Jasper Johns.

GableStage is presenting the Florida premiere of award-winning poet/playwright Claudia Rankine’s The White Card now through Mar. As Rankine’s first published play, The White Card is hailed as “a bracing experience that leaves [audiences] with plenty to think about” by the Boston Globe. The White Card poses the essential question: Can American society progress if whiteness remains invisible? Composed of two scenes, The White Card explores identity, belonging and the racism that can go unnoticed by those who don’t suffer under its weight. Each performance of The White Card will be followed by a curated conversation led by Katie Christie of Voices United.

Poet Carl Phillips has received a $75,000 honor for a body of work which judges said displays exceptional talent.

A Chicago-based writer and activist has received the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets.

NEW YORK – James McBride's latest novel and nonfiction by poets Claudia Rankine and Natasha Trethewey are among the finalists for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for fiction and nonfiction. The American Library Association announced Tuesday that McBride's “Deacon King Kong" was a fiction nominee, along with Ayad Akhtar's novel “Homeland Elegies” and an acclaimed debut novel, Megha Majumdar's “A Burning.” The nonfiction finalists are Trethewey's “Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir," Rankine's “Just Us,” which combines poetry, prose and photography, and Rebecca Giggs' “Fathoms: The World in the Whale." Winners in each category will be receive $5,000, and will be announced Feb. 4, 2021. The awards are supported, in part, by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.