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The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation
Since
its founding by Marita Golden in 1990, the Zora
Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation has been in the forefront
of developing programs that support the national and international
community of Black writers. The Hurston/Wright Award, the country's
only national award for college writers of African descent, has recognized
forty emerging writers, many of whom have gone on to publish books with
major publishers.
Hurston/Wright Writers' Week is the country's only multi-genre summer writer's workshop for Black writers. Since 1996, 800 writers have attended Hurston/Wright Writers' Week, and worked with published novelists, nonfiction writers, poets and screenplay writers on their projects. Several alumni of Hurston/Wright Writers' Week have published books.
The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award is an award for published writers of African descent presented by the Foundation in partnership with Borders Books. Three winners in the categories of Fiction, Debut Fiction and Nonfiction receive respectively $10,000 for the winner and $5,000 each for two finalists. The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award is the only award to published Black writers presented by a panel of their peers.
This award is designed to fill the unfortunate void in recognizing the highest quality fiction and nonfiction by contemporary Black writers. The award also seeks to recognize books that extend and exemplify the tradition of excellence and innovation established by Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright.
In April 2002 Marita Golden received the Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community. At the black-tie gala in New York City, the following salute from Nobel prize winning author Toni Morrison was read:
"It is always heartening to see women step up to the writer's table. When the results are as adriot and affecting as Marita Golden's work, it is more than satisfying , it is cause for celebration. For almost 20 years she has given us the benefit of her vision. I commend her and join the Authors Guild in honoring her."
For more information about the Foundation's mission and programs, visit the official Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation web site.