Jules Feiffer, Tom Wolfe to Speak at Literary Prize Awards
Academy Award winner Jules Feiffer and National Book Award winner Tom Wolfe have both agreed to speak at the Dan’s Papers Literary Prize for Nonfiction awards ceremony on September 3 at Guild Hall. Feiffer will deliver the inaugural address for the Emerging Young Writers Prize and Wolfe will give the keynote speech.
Feiffer, who began cartooning at age 16, has written more than 35 books, plays and screenplays. His iconic cartoons in The Village Voice earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1986. Feiffer also wrote the screenplay and created the storyboards for the animated short Munro, which won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 1961. Closer to home, Feiffer was the recipient of the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary-Media Arts in 2015, and he teaches writing in the Stony Book Southampton MFA program.
Feiffer is happy to have the opportunity to offer encouragement to emerging writers. “As young people starting out as writers and artists,” he says, “our inspiration is coupled always with doing almost anything possible to get in our own way. It takes years of mistakes and corrections to figure out how this game works, and that’s why I will be at Guild Hall to urge you on and perhaps, clear some debris out of your way.”
Author and journalist Tom Wolfe is considered the Father of New Journalism, which he pioneered in his experimental long-form work of reporting The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, published in 1968. The Right Stuff, in which Wolfe chronicled the machismo of American astronauts, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1980. Wolfe received an honorary degree from Southampton College in 1984 and he resides in New York City with his wife and children.
“I am delighted that National Book Award Winner Tom Wolfe will be making the keynote speech for our Literary Prize award ceremony,” says Dan’s Papers founder and editor in chief Dan Rattiner. “And I am also delighted that cartoonist Jules Feiffer, who has won both a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award, will be making the inaugural speech to introduce our new Dan’s Papers Literary Prize for Emerging Writers.”
The Dan’s Papers Literary Prize awards ceremony will be held on Thursday, September 3 at the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall. The event is free and open to the public. In addition to the speeches by Wolfe and Feiffer, actress Pia Lindstrom will read the winning entries and Perlman Music Program alumni will perform. A wine and cheese reception will follow.
That same day, Dan’s Papers will partner with the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) to present a screening of And Everything Is Going Fine, a recent documentary on the life of the late monologist and late East End resident Spalding Gray. Gray’s widow Kathleen Russo will introduce the film and take questions. The screening will take place at the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall. Tickets to the screening are $10 and will be available for sale at LiteraryPrize.DansPapers.com.
Created in 2012, the Dan’s Papers Literary Prize for Nonfiction celebrates the deep connection between writers and the East End of Long Island, with prizes totaling $10,000 for 2015. The Dan’s Papers $6,000 Literary Prize for Nonfiction is open to writers of all ages. New this year, the $4,000 Emerging Young Writers Prize for Nonfiction is open to authors 25 years of age and younger. Entries are accepted online at LiteraryPrize.DansPapers.com until August 15.
Major funding is provided by Barnes & Noble. Sponsorships are provided by Southampton Inn, Bridgehampton National Bank, Ben Krupinski Builders and Bobby Van’s. Support for the Emerging Writers Prize is provided by Alec Baldwin.
Visit LiteraryPrize.DansPapers.com for official rules, to view past entries and to enter both the Dan’s Papers $6,000 Literary Prize for Nonfiction and the Dan’s Papers $4,000 Emerging Young Writers Prize for Nonfiction.