Playwright Brighde Mullins was one of ten emerging writers to receive the 2001 Whiting Writers' Award on Thursday, Oct. 25, The NY Times reports. The awards were given out at the Pierpont Morgan Library, located at 29 East 36th Street in NYC. Presented annually by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the awards consist of $35,000 for each recipient. Mullins was honored for the play Monkey in the Middle. The Whiting Writers' Awards were first established in 1985. This year's winners were selected by a committee of writers, literary scholars and editors. In addition to Mullins, the other writers chosen to receive the awards include five fictions writers, two nonfiction writers and two poets. Among past winners is playwright August Wilson (King Hedley II), who received the award in 1986.

— by Esther Sapan