Award for local author

Award for local author

YOUNGSTOWN — “The Organ Grinder and The Monkey” (Xlibiris), a novel by Youngstown author Sam Moffie, was named a finalist in the Fiction & Literature: Visionary Fiction category of the National Best Books 2008 Awards, sponsored by USA Book News.

The work is Moffie’s second novel.

A complete list of winners and finalists in each category can be found at: www.usabooknews.com.

Whiting Writers’ Award

NEW YORK — Novelist Mischa Berlinski, one of last year’s finalists for the National Book Awards, was among the 10 recipients of a 2008 Whiting Writers’ Award for authors of “exceptional talent and promise in early career.”

The winners each receive $50,000.

Berlinski, whose “Fieldwork” came out in 2007, was among five fiction writers to win. The others were Laleh Khadivi, Manuel Munoz, Benjamin Percy and Lysley Tenorio. The remaining five winners were poets Rick Hilles, Douglas Kearney and Julie Sheehan; playwright Dael Orlandersmith and essayist Donovan Hohn.

The Whiting awards were established in 1985 by The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, a New York-based organization “dedicated to the support of the humanities and of creative writing.”

Vindicator staff/wire reports