Pulitzer Prize Winning LGBTQ Authors and Poets
There are many honours and awards for authors and poets in the world, and certainly one of the most prestigious is the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Americans. Established by journalist Joseph Pulitzer in 1904, the prize is given out in 21 different categories each year in journalism, letters and music as a recognition of excellence in each. The prizes are awarded through the deliberations of a jury, with the reasons for its decisions never disclosed. Receipt of the award ensures a wide exposure for the honourees work, and each of these individuals is considered a leading figure in their field.
Inevitably, there are many controversies over who is omitted and the possible reasons for that. Nevertheless, the awards have become less conservative over its history, and thus more highly respected. That a public LGBTQ individual would receive such an award has not been considered an issue.
The first out LGBTQ individual to win a Pulitzer Prize was author Willa Cather in 1923. The first woman and the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize was also a lesbian, Sara Teasdale in 1918, though she was not publicly out in her lifetime and was married.
The LGBTQ Pulitzer Prize winning authors are generally household names given the wide popularity of their work. Some of the more notable are Thornton Wilder, Alice Walker and Michael Cunningham. Their prize-winning works have been translated to the stage and film. The jury tends to favour authors who write about and provide insight into daily American life.
The LGBTQ Pulitzer Prize winning poets, on the other hand, are not as well known. W. H. Auden is perhaps the best known because of his romantic, social, and religious poetry. Bisexual Edna St. Vincent Millay was a controversial figure for the way she dressed and acted as a man, and for her leadership as a feminist activist.
Note that this list does not include Pulitzer Prize winning playwrights - see Notable LGBTQ Playwrights. To read more on each of these individuals, simply click on their names.
Authors
- A. Scott Berg, 'Lindbergh' (1998)
- Willa Cather, 'One of Ours' (1923)
- Michael Cunningham, 'The Hours' (1998)
- Edna Ferber, 'So Big' (1924)
- Andrew Sean Greer, 'Less' (2018)
- Steven Naifeh, co-author of 'Jackson Pollock: An American Saga' (1989)
- Gregory White Smith, co-author of 'Jackson Pollock: An American Saga' (1989)
- Alice Walker, 'The Color Purple' (1982)
- Thornton Wilder, 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey' (1928)
Poets
- John Lawrence Ashbery, 'Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror' (1975)
- W. H. Auden, 'The Age of Anxiety' (1948)
- Frank Bidart, 'Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016' (2018)
- Elizabeth Bishop, Poet Laureate of the United States (1949-1950)
- Richard Howard, 'Untitled Subjects' (1970)
- Amy Lowell, 'What's O'Clock' (1926)
- William Morris Meredith, Jr., 'Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems' (1988)
- James Merrill, 'Divine Comedies' (1976)
- Mary Oliver, 'American Primitive' (1984)
- James Schuyler, 'The Morning of the Poem' (1980)
- Edna St. Vincent Millay, 'The Ballad of the Harpweaver' (1923)
- Sara Teasdale, 'Love Songs' (1918) first woman to win
- William Carlos Williams, 'Pictures From Brueghel and Other Poems' (1963)
