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May 10, 2022 2:03 AM

Joseph Pulitzer is best known for the Pulitzer Prizes, which were established in 1917 as a result of his endowment to Columbia University. The prizes are given annually to recognize and reward excellence in American journalism, photography, literature, history, poetry, music, and drama.

Sometimes just seeing someone else's favorites is enough to make your day: 2022 Pulitzer Prize winners.
posted by bendy (14 comments total)

The 2020s in a nutshell: Shit in one hand, she says. Wish in another.
posted by chavenet at 3:09 AM on May 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

i live in (a tiny crappy apartment) in one of Pulitzer's houses: the Old Pulitzer Masion in the Colorado Springs north end.

at this point it's run down, but the location can't be beat, here adjacent to a big city park. my back view(.mp4)

now, go on and do the books talk stuff ;-)
posted by j_curiouser at 5:16 AM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Nice to see Andrea Elliott get recognition for Invisible Child, a story she's been working on so long it got two separate FPPs several years apart.
posted by praemunire at 7:45 AM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

But but but... :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xx3Ol5zioo
Pulitzer delivers.
posted by pol at 8:12 AM on May 10, 2022

I have been aware of the Pulitzers for ages (just this week I picked up a Pulitzer-winning novel from a free library box and saw the big Pulitzer call-out on its cover), but I'm not sure I've ever looked at a list of Pulitzer winners, and I certainly had no idea that there were so many categories now.

I want to look up and read so many of these. (I especially like the description recognizing Salamishah Tillet's work: "For learned and stylish writing about Black stories in art and popular culture." Stylish writing. That's wonderful.)

The wording of their recognition of the Journalists of Ukraine is pretty moving, too.

Once upon a time I was going to make myself a reading list of all the Pulitzer nonfiction and biography books ... but I think I've just swapped out that ambition for reading the Pulitzer-winning poets. (Especially after reading about Diane Seuss - thanks for that, chavenet!)

This is, indeed, enough to make my day, and to give me a good year's worth of fruitful and fulfilling exploration.
posted by kristi at 8:18 AM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

I watched this year's play, Black Ham, through the magic of streaming pandemic theater. The trailer is here. I enjoy offbeat Shakespeare adaptations, and this one was great.
I hope they're able to re-release that production; would also like to see it staged.
posted by mersen at 9:14 AM on May 10, 2022

I am friends with the "girlfriend Jen" in Jennifer Senior's excellent piece on the aftershocks of grief in those close to one young man who died on 9/11. I read it when it first came out and had to spread it out across two days because it was just...a lot of emotion, for someone who's also experienced a similar kind of traumatic grief. Here's the metafilter discussion of it, which I didn't see when it came out because I think I may not have been spending much time on The Blue those days.
posted by drlith at 1:18 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Many people are unaware that a work is only eligible for the Pulitzer Prize if the work is deliberately entered for consideration, which requires an entry fee for each work (e.g., $75 USD for the Journalism category). As a consequence, there is extraordinary self-selection bias with these prizes. I am just saying.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 2:01 PM on May 10, 2022

Raven Chacon won the music Pulitzer! Fantastic!
posted by jokeefe at 2:39 PM on May 10, 2022

Many people are unaware that a work is only eligible for the Pulitzer Prize if the work is deliberately entered for consideration, which requires an entry fee for each work (e.g., $75 USD for the Journalism category). As a consequence, there is extraordinary self-selection bias with these prizes. I am just saying.

The entry fee seems pretty nominal to me, and most such awards are organized on the basis of self-submission, even behemoths like the Oscars. I don't really see the issue here.
posted by jokeefe at 2:45 PM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

jokeefe, I was so excited to learn about Raven Chacon's prize for Voiceless Mass. I really want to know more about the work; I want to listen to it attentively, more than once, to get to know it.

Things I found while looking for a way to hear it:

the premiere performance of Voiceless Mass
Voiceless Mass on the Futurestops podcast - mostly interview, but with a lengthy excerpt from the work
a note from Alex Ross about the prize, and being on the jury
posted by kristi at 8:26 AM on May 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

The entry fee seems pretty nominal to me, and most such awards are organized on the basis of self-submission, even behemoths like the Oscars. I don't really see the issue here.

I'll bite. The whole things smacks less of celebrating excellence than fostering self-promotion. Of interest (to me, at least) would be a list not of the finalists, but of all the hopefuls who ponied up the cash for a chance at the golden ticket and Big Cash Prize. How many entries does, say, the New York Times purchase every year?

As to the nominal cost of entry, well, at least in the book categories, you're hard pressed to find anything published by a small press. Those operations have smaller marketing budgets and given the past winners, I suspect are more likely to figure, why bother? I could be wrong

Did they always require an entrance fee? (Googlefu led me to this entertaining diatribe, but no answer.)
posted by BWA at 2:35 PM on May 11, 2022

The cash prize for a Pulitzer is a whopping $15,000. I feel like you are trying to fit a particular scam model onto facts that don't fit it.
posted by praemunire at 10:30 AM on May 13, 2022

(Also, looking at the books category, Graywolf is right there.)
posted by praemunire at 10:33 AM on May 13, 2022