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NEW YORK—A Filipino-American writer has been selected by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation as one of ten recipients of the 2008 Whiting Writers’ Awards.
Lysley Tenorio, currently an associate professor of English at Saint Mary’s College of California, was both surprised and happy when he found out that he was named a recipient of the prestigious award. Tenorio, who received the award in New York City recently, is one of 10 emerging writers of exceptional talent and promise to receive the prize of $50,000 this year.
Tenorio found out the good news through a voicemail on his cell phone.
"Naturally, I was shocked— since there's no application, writers are simply given the award, and I never, ever imagined I would be chosen by the Whiting Foundation, much less nominated by one of their anonymous nominators. It's still hard to believe," Tenorio told the Asian Journal in an interview.
"I’m honored and humbled by the award, and by the fact that the Whiting Foundation appreciates what I’m trying to do in my fiction. It’s a wonderful and extremely generous gift," he added.
Tenorio recently completed a collection of short stories, entitled, Monstress, some of which have appeared in Ploughshares, the Atlantic Monthly, the Chicago Tribune, and Manoa.
Two have been anthologized in the Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices.
"Thematically, the stories deal with Filipinos in America, many of whom find themselves forced to make choices that illustrate the clash and meld of both Filipino and American culture. The stories deal with comic book superheroes, monster movies, The Beatles, transsexual siblings, among others," Tenorio shared.
From his home in San Francisco, he writes primarily about first-generation Filipino immigrants in California. At Saint Mary’s, Tenorio currently teaches undergraduate English and creative writing in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program.
He is also working on a novel.
Tenorio considers American writer Bharati Mukherjee as a huge influence.
"She was also my professor at UC Berkeley, and is the person who first encouraged me to write," he shared.
He also considers Chang-rae Lee, who was his mentor in graduate school, an influence, alongside writers such as Kazuo Ishigiruo, Tobias Wolff, Steven Millhauser, among others.
While he admits that he doesn’t know many Filipino writers, Tenorio said that he is a Jessica Hagedorn fan. "I've admired her 'Dogeaters' for many years," he quipped.
Tenorio adds the Whiting Writers’ Award to an impressive list of accolades.
He won a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a John Steinbeck Fellowship at San Jose State University, and an NEA Fellowship in addition to fellowships received from The University of Wisconsin at Madison, Phillips Exeter Academy, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony. He was also the recipient of a Nelson Algren Short Story Award and was nominated for a National Magazine Award.
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