Ten writers will receive $50,000 Whiting Writers Awards:

NEW YORK (AP) — Ten emerging writers, their home countries ranging from Vietnam to the United States, each have received a $50,000 prize.

The Whiting Writers’ Awards, given annually for “exceptional talent and promise in early career,” were announced Wednesday. The recipients included fiction writer Vu Tran, born in Vietnam and now living in Las Vegas, and poet Jay Hopler, a native of Puerto Rico who lives in Tampa, Fla.

The other winners were poets Jericho Brown and Joan Kane, playwright Rajiv Joseph, nonfiction authors Michael Meyer and Hugh Raffles, and fiction writers Adam Johnson, Nami Mun and Salvatore Scibona, whose novel “The End” was a National Book Award finalist in 2008.

The awards, presented by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, were founded in 1985. Previous winners include such Pulitzer Prize winners as Jeffrey Eugenides, Michael Cunningham and Jorie Graham.

Here is a press release’s description of the new winners:

Jericho Brown, poetry.  “Please” is his first book, published by New Issues Poetry & Prose in 2008.  He lives in San Diego.

Jay Hopler, poetry.  His first collection, “Green Squall,” was published by Yale University Press in 2005.  He lives in Tampa, Florida.

Adam Johnson, fiction.  He is the author of “Emporium” (Viking 2002) and “Parasites Like Us” (Viking, 2003).  He lives in San Francisco.

Rajiv Joseph, plays.   His productions include “Animals out of Paper, Bengal Tiger” at the Baghdad Zoo and the forthcoming “Gruesome Playground Injuries.”  He lives in Brooklyn.

Joan Kane, poetry.  “The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife,” her first collection, will be published by NorthShore Press this fall.  She lives in Anchorage.

Michael Meyer, nonfiction.  “The Last Days of Old Beijing:  Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed,” was published by Walker & Company in 2008.  Soon to return to China, he lives in New York City.

Nami Mun, fiction.  “Miles from Nowhere,” a novel, was published by Riverhead in 2009.  Born in Seoul, South Korea, she lives in Chicago.

Hugh Raffles, nonfiction.   He is the author of “In Amazonia: A Natural History” (Princeton University Press, 2002), and “The Illustrated Insectopedia,” which Pantheon will publish in the spring of 2010. A Professor of Anthropology at The New School, he lives in New York City.

Salvatore Scibona, fiction.  “The End,” his first novel, was published by Graywolf Press in 2008 and shortlisted for the National Book Awards.  He lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Vu Tran, fiction.  This accomplished short story writer has an as-yet-untitled first novel forthcoming from W.W. Norton.  Born in Vietnam, he now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.