The Whiting Awards jury has announced this year\u2019s ten winners in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama. Two winners picking up the $50,000 prize are from Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Whiting Awards jury has announced this year\u2019s ten winners in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama. Two winners picking up the $50,000 prize are from Texas. <\/span>Merritt Tierce<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> won for fiction with her debut novel, <\/span>Love Me Back<\/em>, set in the world of Dallas\u2019 high-end restaurants and low-paid waitresses. The other writer, poet <\/span>Vanessa Ang\u00e9lica Villareal<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>, is also a winner for her debut, a poetry collection, <\/span>Beast Meridian<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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These days, Tierce lives in LA, writing for television\u2019s Orange is the New Black<\/em>, and working on a second literary effort, this one, the Whiting website says, is \u201ca book of autofiction about men, sex, writing, the internet, depression, being a woman, physicality, and television.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Villareal is from the Rio Grande Valley. Her haunting, surreal poetry has been published in The Boston Review<\/em> and The Academy of American Poets<\/em>. She\u2019s at work on her doctorate in English literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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