September 22, 2025, 3:22pm

Today, on his 65th birthday, poet and memoirist Kenny Fries has announced the inaugural winner of a new annual award, the Kenny Fries Disabled Writer Literary Award, which “seeks to provide visibility to the next generation of disabled and/or Deaf writers.”

“As a ‘pioneer’ of Disability Literature, as I age I’ve become increasingly concerned about the legacy of Disability Arts,” Fries said in a statement. “Historically, disabled writers have been marginalized and denied access to professional education and training, and the lack of disabled mentors has caused the link between generations of disabled writers to be too often lost. My hope is this annual award will assist a disabled writer of a younger generation to become more widely known both in the Disability Arts community as well as in the arts world at large.”

The 2025 winner is Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, “a poet, rootworker, diviner, and clinical herbalist from Piscataway, New Jersey. He is the author of several books, chapbooks, and zines including WATCHNIGHT and SLINGSHOT. He runs balm in gilead herb shop in Kingston, NY.”

“I chose Cyrée Jarelle Johnson as the inaugural award recipient because his poems explode the boundaries of language, subject, and form,” said Fries. “His poems give us the opportunity to encounter those we usually do not meet in the pages of our poetry. He gives space to a wide array of people, places, and politics.”

“In a world where disabled writers are more likely to be written about by caretakers than published themselves,” said Johnson, “I’m grateful to be the first recipient of the Kenny Fries Award so I can continue to commit to my work.”

Johnson will be awarded $1,000.