Brilliant Young Things Accept First Winterhouse Writing Awards

We were honored to shake hands with Thomas de Monchaux and Katherine Feo last night, winners of the first Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing and Criticism. The two writers were presented with AIGA Medals bound in a Winterhouse-branded box and cash awards of $5000 and $1000, respectively. If that doesn’t inspire you to start sharpening your pencils, consider this story: Jessica Helfand presented the awards with her husband and Winterhouse partner William Drenttel, who admitted that they met when Helfand first recruited him to write a piece for AIGA’s Voice. Writing about design, he said, is a great way to get chicks.

I.D.’s Julie Lasky–undoubtedly one of the happiest editors we’ve ever met–was a juror for the awards and told us the winners definitely stood out: de Monchaux for his grasp of architectural history and Feo because she was flat-out funny.

When asked what they would do with her winnings, de Monchaux said he would get a computer with a working “x” key, while an exceptionally well-dressed Feo lamented, “You’re looking at it.”

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