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Alison Bechdel named 2014 MacArthur Fellow and with it $625k

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Alan Gardner September 17, 2014 1 minute 0 comments

Dykes to Watch Out For creator Alison Bechdel has been named along with 20 other individuals as 2014 MacArthur Fellows – a distinction that not only carries the label of “genius” but also a cash award of $625,000 no-strings-attaached prize.

From the Burlington Free Press:

Bechdel, who lives in Bolton, had won a creative lottery. She had been named a 2014 MacArthur Fellow, an award that comes with $625,000 in unrestricted grant money to fuel her work on comics and graphic memoirs.

The foundation announced 21 new fellows today. MacArthur does not accept applications for the award and says the several hundred nominations it receives each year are kept confidential. A selection committee reviews the nominations against the standard of “exceptional creativity,” and 20 to 30 fellows are announced each year.

According to the Free Press, The MacArthur Foundation called her storytelling “striking for its conceptual depth and complexity in structure as well as for the deft use of allusion and reference.”