Members of the 2018 class of Pulitzer winners in Letters, Drama and Music have taught at the nation's leading universities, seen their work performed in prestigious venues and influenced David Bowie's last songs.
We are proud to present a selection of interviews, lectures and readings.
Six years before he received the Fiction Prize, Andrew Sean Greer conducted a wide-ranging Q&A with e-learning portal Big Think.
When asked about how this age would be remembered, Greer said, "I think it will seem like it did in a way in the early 50s... of anxiety and depression and fear and then I have a sense that it will open up into a new sort of 60s.
But for sure it will be seen as an oddly dark time in American history. When, for one moment, America ruled the world... and then it was the tipping point."
An essay in Criticism finalist Carlos Lozada's portfolio and a 2017 Army War College risk assessment would go on to echo many aspects of Greer's analysis.
In May 2017, Martyna Majok and the Manhattan Theatre Club cast of "Cost of Living" gathered for a roundtable discussion over drinks.
Actress Katy Sullivan ('Ani') lauded Majok's perceptive writing. "Coming at this as a performer with a disability, the thing I love so much about this play is that it really is about relationships," she said. "And it is about people trying to deal with each other through this lens of their personal experiences with their bodies the way that they are."
Shortly after its release, Jack E. Davis spoke about 'The Gulf' at a Gulfport (Fla.) History Museum lecture sponsored by the Gulfport Historical Society in May 2017.
As he prepared to read excerpts from the book at 10:23, Davis said, "I didn't write this book for academics. I didn't write it for those cold, steel shelled academic libraries that students don't bother going to. I wrote it for an audience for such as yourself, an intellectually curious audience."
In late 2012, Caroline Fraser visited the Iowa City Public Library to discuss the Library of America's two volume edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House' books, which she had recently edited.
Fraser discussed the edition's "extensive chronology" of Wilder's life and marginalia on her writing processes, setting the stage for her Prize-winning biography later in the decade.
Frank Bidart read from 'Half-light' at New York's venerable 92nd Street Y in April 2017.
At 22:20, Bidart prepared to read "For the AIDS Dead," first published by The New Republic in 2012. A work about "the guilt of the survivor," Bidart reflected, "One had no idea why one survived and one's friends did not. Brilliant people like James Merrill did not."
Like Bidart, James Forman Jr. perceived his mission in generational terms.
"[I] viewed the criminal justice system as a really important civil rights issue for my generation, really alongside education," he told The 74 in April 2017. As a public defender in Washington, D.C., Forman advocated probation for a first-time African American juvenile offender. However, the African American judge excoriated the defendant for failing to honor the legacy of the civil rights movement before sending him to a prison without a functioning educational program.
Characterizing the judge's actions as "perverse," Forman said, "There was a story to be told [and] there was a book that needed to be written about the complex, nuanced politics of crime and punishment in black communities."
Shortly before the release of the Prize-winning 'DAMN.,' Kendrick Lamar was interviewed by producer Rick Rubin (known for his work with the Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash and Kanye West) for GQ in October 2016. The interview was conducted at Rubin's Shangri-la Studio in Malibu, formerly utilized by The Band and 1960s sitcom 'Mister Ed.'
Beginning at 7:35, Lamar reflected on the formative influence of his parents' musical preferences.
"My parents were fairly young in the city of Compton. So the things that they played — you know, that was the hip crowd. So I was being exposed to all these ideas, from Big Daddy Kane to Eazy-E to the Bay Area — Too Short, E-40 — you know, back to Marvin Gaye and the Isley Brothers. This field of music just broadened my ideas to come."