Whiting Pairs $40,000 Nonfiction Grants With New Publicity Training, Names 2025 Winners

Press Shop PR and its Book Publicity School will run a six-week publicity course with office hours and an online community for current and past Whiting nonfiction grantees. The 2025 winners are Paul Bogard, Jason Cherkis, S. C. Cornell, Caitlin Dickerson, Elena Dudum, Grace Elizabeth Hale, Will Harris, Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Avi Steinberg, and Raksha Vasudevan. Executive director Constantia Constantinou said the initiative extends Whiting’s prior in-house publicity help in response to shrinking publisher marketing and media coverage. This year’s projects include work on suicide prevention history, border politics and deportation, and a new Grace Paley biography, with each book under contract in the U.S. or U.K. Press Shop founder Leah Paulos emphasized training in platform development, messaging, and media outreach, and grantee Raksha Vasudevan said it will help her balance writing with audience engagement.