Two Freshly Minted Literary Geniuses Will Visit Seattle Soon

by Rich Smith(L-R) Look for Viet Thanh Nguyen and Jesmyn Ward at a Benaroya Hall near you.John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
This morning the MacArthur Fellowship announced their new class of geniuses, each of whom receive $625,000 "as an investment in their potential." Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen and novelist Jesmyn Ward count themselves among the winners. The prescient literary programers at Seattle Arts and Lectures just so happened to have invited Nguyen and