Walker’s ‘Magically Black’ Shortlisted for PEN Essay Prize

Jerald Walker‘s  latest book, Magically Black and Other Essays (Amistad), was one of five collections shortlisted for the PEN Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

The book was longlisted for the prestigious prize, “for a seasoned writer whose collection of essays is an expansion on their corpus of work and preserves the distinguished art form of the essay,” last month. The winner will be announced at the 2025 Literary Awards Ceremony on Thursday, May 8, at The Town Hall in New York.

Others finalists in the category are Marianne Boruch (Sing by the Burying Ground, Northwestern U. Press), Dagoberto Gilb (A Passing West, U. of New Mexico Press), Amy Leach (The Salt of the Universe, Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and Phillip Lopate (My Affair with Art House Cinema, Columbia U. Press).

“It’s always personally and professionally gratifying to receive affirmation for your work, and it’s made even more so when it’s included alongside the work of writers you’ve long admired,” the Writing, Literature & Publishing Distinguished Professor told Emerson Today upon the book’s being longlisted.

The Winner of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award will receive a $15,000 prize.

Walker’s previous collection of essays, How to Make a Slave and Other Essays (Mad Creek/The Ohio University Press) was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award in Nonfiction, and winner of the 2020 Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction.