Victoria Christopher Murray and Phil Klay to Serve as Guest Judges for The Chautauqua Prize

Chautauqua Institution proudly announces the 2024 guest judges and jury for The Chautauqua Prize. 

Awarded annually since 2012, The Chautauqua Prize celebrates a book of fiction or literary/narrative nonfiction that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and to honor the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts. Books published in 2023 were accepted as submissions for the 2024 Prize from September–December 2023. The 2024 Prize finalists and award-winning book will be selected from a long list of entries read and reviewed by 102 volunteer Chautauquans who are writers, publishers, educators, editors, librarians, and avid readers. This year, the Institution is honored to share that the Prize jury will include two well renowned and award-winning writers as guest judges, Victoria Christorpher Murray and Phil Klay. 

Victoria Christopher Murray is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 30 novels, including the New York Times instant bestsellers The Personal Librarian and The First Ladies, both co-written with Marie Benedict. A native New Yorker, Murray attended Hampton University where she majored in Communication Disorders. After graduating, she attended New York University’s Stern School of Business where she received her MBA in Marketing. 

Murray originally self-published her first novel, Temptation, which was then published in 2000 by Time Warner. Temptation remained on the Essence bestsellers list for nine consecutive months. In 2001, Murray received her first NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Literature with Temptation. Over her career, Murray has received numerous awards, including the Phyllis Wheatley Trailblazer Award, the Delta Sigma Theta Osceola Award for Excellence in the Arts, Go On Girl Book Club Author of the Year, 11 African American Literary Awards and five NAACP Image Award nominations. In 2016, she won the Image Award for Outstanding Literature for her social commentary novel, Stand Your Ground.  

In addition to being a New York Times bestseller, The Personal Librarian was a Good Morning America Book Club selection and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR. The First Ladies was Target’s 2023 Book of the Year. Five of Murray’s Seven Deadly Sins novels became Lifetime movies produced by T.D. Jakes, Shaun Robinson and Derrick Williams. The Personal Librarian has been optioned by Al Roker Entertainment to become a miniseries. With almost 3 million books in print, Murray is one of the country’s top African American contemporary authors. 

Phil Klay is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. His short story collection Redeployment won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and The Chautauqua Prize in 2015. His novel Missionaries was one of the Wall Street Journal‘s best 10 books of 2020, as well as President Barack Obama’s best books of the year. His latest book is Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. He currently teaches fiction at Fairfield University. 

Klay and Murray will present a session at this year’s Summer Assembly; Murray to co-present The First Ladies: A Novel as a Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle author with co-author Marie Benedict, and Klay to be featured within the Master Series programing. 

They join our jury of readers in the selection process for The Chautauqua Prize, including  Kwame Alexander, the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts; Stephine Hunt, manager of literary arts; Sara Toth, editor of The Chautauquan Daily; and Emily Carpenter, Prize administrator and Department of Education coordinator. 

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, producer and the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of 40 books, including This is the Honey, Why Fathers Cry at Night, An American Story, The Door of No Return, Becoming Muhammad Ali (co-authored with James Patterson), Rebound, which was shortlisted for the prestigious UK Carnegie Medal, and The Undefeated, the National Book Award nominee, Newbery Honor, and Caldecott Medal-winning picture book illustrated by Kadir Nelson. 

Alexander is also the executive producer, showrunner, and Emmy-winning writer of “The Crossover” TV series, based on his Newbery-Medal winning novel of the same name, which premiered on Disney+ in April 2023. The series was produced in partnership with LeBron James’ SpringHill Company and Big Sea Entertainment, Alexander’s production company that is dedicated to creating innovative, highly original children’s and family entertainment. Other current projects in development at Big Sea include “America’s Next Great Author,” the groundbreaking reality television series for writers. 

A regular contributor to NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Alexander is the creator and host of the “Why Fathers Cry” podcast, premiering September 2023, featuring conversations about love and parenting and loss, with fathers and sons. He regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing around the world at events like the Chautauqua Lecture Series, the Edinburgh Book Festival, Aspen Ideas, and the Global Literacy Symposium in Ghana, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana. Most recently he was appointed the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts and Writer-in-Residence at the Chautauqua Institution.  

His mission is to change the world, one word at a time. 

Manager of Literary Arts Stephine Hunt assists the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts in the design and implementation of initiatives to strengthen and deepen the value of the literary arts at Chautauqua Institution. She provides administrative leadership for the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC), the Chautauqua Writers’ Center, pre-season Writers’ Festival, the literary journal Chautauqua, and two national literary prizes (The Chautauqua Prize and the Chautauqua Janus Prize). She works collaboratively with other colleagues on school-based programs, such as the CLSC Young Readers Program, Battle of the Books, and the interactive Poetry Makerspace. Prior to her appointment as manager of literary arts in 2023, Hunt served the Institution as the CLSC Octagon Manager since 2017.  

Hunt is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in American Studies at the University at Buffalo and is an adjunct instructor of English and ethnic and gender studies at the State University of New York, Fredonia. Her areas of expertise include critical Indigenous studies, Native American history and literature, and the environmental humanities. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and history at Alfred University and her master’s degree in English at SUNY Fredonia. 

Sara Toth works in the Department of Education and in the Department of Marketing, Communications & Enterprise at Chautauqua Institution. During Chautauqua’s Summer Assembly season, she serves as editor of The Chautauquan Daily, a newspaper first established in 1876 as the official newspaper and archival paper of record of the Institution. There, she oversees a team of 24 college student interns who write, edit, photograph and design the Daily for the Chautauqua readership. She joined the year-round, full-time staff at the Institution in 2014 as assistant editor of the Daily, then managing editor, before becoming the newspaper’s 18th editor in 2018. In the Department of Education, she serves as lecture associate, assisting in researching, planning and programming the Chautauqua Lecture Series, and assists in the coordination, execution, and communication of The Chautauqua Prize. She established and formerly co-coordinated the annual Battle of the Books for Chautauqua County fifth graders.  

Toth is a graduate of Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English Literature. After graduating, she was a community and education reporter for a collection of newspapers in the Baltimore Sun Media Group, where her reporting earned several awards from the MDDC (Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia) Press Association. 

Emily Carpenter works in the Department of Education at Chautauqua Institution as department coordinator. In her current role, she works as administrator of The Chautauqua Prize, lecture assistant and assistant archivist, among other responsibilities. Prior to working in the Department of Education, Carpenter taught in various local school districts, tutored local middle school students, and was night auditor at the Chautauqua Bookstore. Carpenter received her master’s degree in American History from American Military University and bachelor’s degrees in social studies education and history from the State University of New York, Fredonia. 

The Chautauqua Prize, which will be awarded for the 13th time this year, has been inspired since its inception by the late literary and entertainment industry attorney Michael I. Rudell, and his wife, Alice. Previous winners include The Sojourn, by Andrew Krivak (2012); Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, by Timothy Egan (2013); My Foreign Cities, by Elizabeth Scarboro (2014); Redeployment, by Phil Klay (2015); Off the Radar, by Cyrus Copeland (2016); The Fortunes, by Peter Ho Davies (2017); The Fact of a Body, by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich (2018); All the Names They Used for God, by Anjali Sachdeva (2019); Out of Darkness, Shining Light, by Petina Gappah (2020); Having and Being Had, by Eula Biss (2021); All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner (2022); and Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2023).  

Winners of The Chautauqua Prize are noteworthy for their capacity to open inquiry and create an inviting space for conversation among many different kinds of readers, making the books an ideal vehicle to engage in Chautauqua Institution’s historic tradition of reading and discussion in community. Chautauqua’s other annual literary award, the Chautauqua Janus Prize, celebrates experimental writers who have not yet published a book. Taken together, these prizes ensure that both tradition and innovation live at the heart of a Chautauqua reader’s life of learning.  

ABOUT THE CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE     
Awarded annually since 2012, The Chautauqua Prize draws upon Chautauqua Institution’s considerable literary legacy to celebrate a book that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and to honor the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts. The author of the winning book will receive $7,500 and will participate in a Prize ceremony and reading on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution during the 2024 Summer Assembly Season. For more information, visit prize.chq.org.      

ABOUT CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY ARTS     
With a history steeped in the literary arts, Chautauqua Institution is the home of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, founded in 1878, which honors at least nine outstanding books of fiction, nonfiction, essays and poetry with community discussions and author presentations every summer. Further literary arts programs at Chautauqua include the Kwame Alexander Writers’ Lab & Conference — previously known as the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival, which convenes writers each June in workshops, panels, and other conversations that draw fruitful and urgent connections between the personal, the political and the craft of writing — as well as the summer-long workshops, craft lectures and readings from some of the very best author-educators in North America at the Chautauqua Writers’ Center. Chautauqua Literary Arts is supported by the Manager of Literary Arts and led by the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of the Literary Arts, an endowed chair established in memory of a beloved Chautauquan who, among other things, inspired Chautauqua’s first literary award, The Chautauqua Prize.    

ABOUT CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION     
Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer — and year-round through the CHQ Assembly online platforms — with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue.