We always knew that gays are fabulous, and often smart enough to get women to fall in love with them, but geniuses? Well, it’s official now.
At least two of this year’s recipients of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s so-called “genius grants,” which provide $625,000 apiece to folks in all fields who accomplish something spectacular, are openly gay: Pianist and music writer Jeremy Denk, and playwright Tarell McCraney, pictured (who writes about the gay and African-American experiences), are among the current crop of honorees, announced this morning. (Of course, there may be more gays on the list, but agricultural ecologists are less likely to be well-known enough to have come out before they were called “geniuses.”)
One of our regular contributors, Gregg Shapiro, interviewed McCraney in 2010. You can read that interview here.