The MacArthur Foundation announced this year’s winners of its annual fellowships. The twenty-four fellowship winners include the writers Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ben Lerner, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Ellen Bryant Voigt, a former AWP board trustee.

Of the 2015 class of Fellows, MacArthur President Julia Stasch said, “These 24 delightfully diverse MacArthur Fellows are shedding light and making progress on critical issues, pushing the boundaries of their fields, and improving our world in imaginative, unexpected ways. Their work, their commitment, and their creativity inspire us all.”

The rationale of The MacArthur Fellows Program is to “award unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.”

Profiles of all twenty-four winners are available at the MacArthur Foundation’s website.