Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Surprise Grants Transforming 23 More Lives

By  - The New York Times - Published: October 1, 2012

Natalia Almada, a 37-year-old filmmaker in Mexico City; Raj Chetty, a 33-year-old public economist who teaches at Harvard; and Eric A. Coleman, a 47-year-old physician in Denver, have now become connected, part of an eclectic group whose lives were recently, and irrevocably, changed with a single telephone call.

Jeffrey Henson Scales/The New York Times - Junot Díaz
The three were among the 23 MacArthur Fellows for 2012, whose names were revealed Monday afternoon, ahead of the official announcement scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. The fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, awards that can’t be applied for, are the stuff of fantasy. 
Besides the imprimatur of outstanding achievement, they come with a no-strings-attached $100,000 a year for five years.
The 13 men and 10 women named fellows this year range in age from 31 to 66 and, as in years past, are a diverse group. They include an astronomer, a stringed instrument bow maker, two photographers and a marine ecologist. This year the boldface names belong to writers and musicians: Junot Díaz, 43, the writer and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Chris Thile, 31, a mandolinist and composer in New York City; David Finkel 56, a Washington Post reporter; Dinaw Mengestu, 34, a novelist and journalist in Washington; and Claire Chase, 34, a flutist and arts entrepreneur in Brooklyn.

Full story at The New York Times


And from Vulture:
Junot Díaz Is Among This Year’s MacArthur Fellowship Winners

Junot Diaz
The Dominican-American literary rock star and sometime MIT professor is among the 23 MacArthur Fellows announced on Monday, a group of geniuses deemed so unfathomably awesome that they deserve $500,000 (over five years) to just keep doing whatever it is that's working so well for them. In Diaz's case, that's writing about his cheating alter ego — his newest short story collection, This Is How You Lose Her, came out last month — and hopefully getting a solid start on that new novel he told New York's Boris Kachka he wants to write "about a 14-year-old 'Dominican York' girl who saves the planet from a full-blown apocalypse." Ah, how a magically appearing slush fund must get the creative juices flowing.

And over at Galley Cat:



Junot Diaz & Dinaw Mengestu Win $500,000 Genius Grants

Novelists Junot Diaz and Dinaw Mengestu were among the 23 fellows who have won a $500,000 “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation this year.
In a crazy twist of fate, both are Riverhead Books novelists. Other writers on the list were journalist and author David Finkel and historian Dylan C. Penningroth. The AP has the complete list at this link.

Here’s more about the awards, from the Foundation: “The recipients learned, through a phone call out of the blue from the Foundation, that they will each receive $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years. MacArthur Fellowships come without stipulations or reporting requirements and offer Fellows unprecedented freedom and opportunity to reflect, create, and explore. The unusual level of independence afforded to Fellows underscores the spirit of freedom intrinsic to creative endeavors. The work of MacArthur Fellows knows neither boundaries nor the constraints of age, place, and endeavor.”

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