Writers’ Institute’s choices for NY State Author, Poet are both from Brooklyn
The New York State Writers Institute has chosen two Brooklyn residents as its new state author and its new state poet — poet Patricia Spears Jones and children’s/teens’ book author Jacqueline Woodson.
The awards, established in 1985 by the late Gov. Mario Cuomo and the state legislature to promote fiction and poetry in the state, are presented once every two years by the writers Institute. Those named to these positions each receive $10,000 and serve for two years.
Woodson will receive the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Fiction, and Jones will receive the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit for poetry at a ceremony at the University of Albany on Friday, Sept. 23.