The Writer’s Foundry at St. Joseph’s College is proud to announce that creative writing M.F.A. faculty member Leah Nanako Winkler was recently awarded the Yale Drama Series Prize for her new play “God Said This.”
She will receive $10,000, and her play will be published by the Yale University Press. Additionally, there will be a private, staged reading Oct. 30 at Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater.
“We at The Writer’s Foundry are very proud of our playwriting instructor, Leah Nanako Winkler, who received yet another prestigious national award in recognition of her amazing work,” said Grace Bonner, director of the Writer’s Foundry at SJC Brooklyn. “The Writer’s Foundry is an intimate, interdisciplinary program, and we are fortunate to have one of our guiding stars advising five lucky second-year students on their plays this semester.”
“God Said This” concerns Hiro who, after years away, returns to Lexington, Kentucky, because her mom is undergoing chemotherapy. Sophie, her born-again Christian sister, fights to maintain her faith amid adversity. James, their recovering alcoholic father, wants to repair his fractured relationship with his daughters, but redemption isn’t easy. And John, an old classmate and single dad, worries about his legacy.
Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese-American playwright from Kamakura, Japan, and Lexington, Kentucky. Her play “Kentucky” was among the top 10 on the 2015 Kilroys List and recently received an Off-Broadway Premiere at Ensemble Studio Theatre in a co-production with Page 73 and the Radio Drama Network. Leah is also the author of six other critically-awarded plays. In 2017, her play “Two Mile Hollow” (2017 Kilroys List) received a simultaneous world premiere in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and San Francisco. She was recently cited by The New York Times as a “distinctive new voice” and was the recipient of the inaugural Mark O’Donnell Prize.
For more information, contact Michael Banach at mbanach@sjny.edu.
