Let us be upfront about this: we are perfectly willing to accept a genius grant. Just recently, the husband realized the truth about us — we were born to be showered in gifts. We will not say how many years it’s taken him to come to this conclusion. Suffice to say, more than a few. So if the MacArthur people want to help us fulfill our destiny, we are available.
That being said, we realize our particular genius cannot be cajoled by mere money (oh, don’t get us wrong…we are mercenary to the soles of our little feet).
We were interested in the fact that winners of the genius grant (no, we’re not going to call it by anything else) apparently did their best work before the money was handed over. See, it made us wonder how the concept of “best” was determined, especially since we always sort of thought the grants allowed an author the freedom to do what they wanted. We want to assure all past winners who were apparently past their prime that they weren’t. it’s just that quantitative analysis doesn’t work on the creative process. Sandra Cisneros…you haven’t peaked. We promise.
- Genius grants don’t pay off in lit: MacArthur finds authors late — and defies a push in philanthropy to evaluate the impact of giving
