Erika Dickerson-Despenza has won the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play cullud wattah.

Dickerson-Despenza is a Black, queer feminist poet-playwright and cultural-memory worker from Chicago, Illinois who has won numerous awards for her work over the last 20 years. 

Her recent award, the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, was given the prize in a virtual ceremony presented by award-winning playwright Marsha Norman. Actor Paapa Essiedu announced the winning play, which comes with an award of $25,000 and a signed and numbered print by artist Willen de Kooning. 

Two special commendations were given to Kimber Lee’s The Water Palace and Ife Olujobi’s Jordans, with each writer awarded $10,000.

The winning afro-surrealist play cullud wattah, follows three generations of Black women living through the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, was originally set to open at the Public Theater in New York in 2020. It was postponed indefinitely by the pandemic.