Jamel Brinkley, assistant professor in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, was named the winner of the fourth annual Maya Angelou Book Award for Witness: Stories. He was named Nov. 21 during the Writers for Readers literary event co-sponsored by the Kansas City Public Library and the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.

“It is thrilling, a tremendous honor, to receive this award named for Maya Angelou whose work was committed to facing injustice and enduring loss without being defeated, and to what she called ‘deep talk,’ telling beautiful, singular stories that are large and resonant, sounding truths about how we live, how we persist, and how we struggle towards our fullest potential,” says Brinkley.

Witness: Stories is a short story collection set in New York City that follows narratives of actions taken and not taken. Brinkley, who grew up in the Bronx and Brooklyn, was selected as the winner from five finalists who emerged from a field of 150 submissions.

Witness: Stories is the first short story collection to win the award.

"In a work that questions what it means to be a ‘witness’ to life, as well as ‘witness’ life as it's lived, the reader becomes part of the stories, identifying with and witnessing the characters' experiences,” says Kaite Stover, Kansas City Public Library’s director of readers’ services.

The Kansas City Public Library, UMKC, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri State University, and Northwest Missouri State, Truman State, and Southeast Missouri State universities established the award in 2020. The award includes a $10,000 stipend, and Brinkley will conduct a book tour of the six Missouri universities that participate in the award.

Named for acclaimed, Missouri-born memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, the prize celebrates contemporary writers whose work demonstrates their commitment to social justice. It alternates annually between poetry and fiction, going this year to the author of a work of fiction.