NEW YORK (AP) — A Philadelphia-based actor-playwright and a former border patrol agent are among this year's 10 winners of $50,000 Whiting Awards for emerging artists.

The recipients were announced Wednesday night at a ceremony in Manhattan.

They include Philadelphia's James Ijames and Francisco Cantú, of Tucson, Arizona, a former border agent working on a memoir.

Other winners are playwrights Clarence Coo and Clare Barron; poets Simone White and Phillip B. Williams; and fiction writers Jen Beagin, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Tony Tulathimutte and Lisa Halliday.

The Whiting Awards were established in 1985 by the Whiting Foundation and are given to those with the promise of "superior literary work."

Previous winners include Jonathan Franzen, August Wilson and Colson Whitehead.