Purdue News

November 16, 2001 Purdue University Press author receives Whiting award WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue University Press is one of only two university presses whose authors have received the prestigious 2001 Whiting Writing Awards. Joel Brouwer, poet and author of "Exactly What Happened," received the award from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. The foundation was created in 1985 to recognize emerging writers of exceptional talent and promise. The award includes a $35,000 grant for each recipient. "Exactly What Happened," a first collection of poems by Brouwer, unveils the magician's trick: an illusion only works if people believe that what they have just seen is exactly what happened. Brouwer's work considers characters and events, both real and imagined, seeking to expose the deceptions people live with daily. A boy discovers his mail-order magic kit is a fake. A journalist manipulates his photographs to maximize their drama. Harry Houdini explains that his illusions were produced not by magic but labor, by "these fingers, cut and callused stalks." Purdue University Press published "Exactly What Happened" in 1999 as the winner of the 1998 Verna Emery Poetry Prize. Brouwer also won the 1999 Levis Reading Prize. Brouwer was born in Michigan and educated at Sarah Lawrence College and Syracuse University. His poems have appeared in "Paris Review," "Ploughshares" and "Southwest Review," among other magazines, and his criticism appears regularly in "Harvard Review" and "The Progressive." He has received a Halls Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Carbondale, Ill., where he is an assistant professor in the English department at Southern Illinois University. CONTACT: Bryan Shaffer, Purdue University Press marketing coordinator, (765) 494-8428, bshaffer@purdue.edu. Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu To the Purdue News and Photos Page