Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing
Encyclopedia
The Pulitzer Prize
for Feature Writing has been awarded since 1979 for a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality. The Pulitzer Committee issues an official citation explaining the reasons for the award.
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for Feature Writing has been awarded since 1979 for a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality. The Pulitzer Committee issues an official citation explaining the reasons for the award.
List of winners and their official citations
- 1979: Jon D. Franklin, Baltimore Evening Sun, for 'Mrs. Kelly's Monster', "an account of brain surgery."
- 1980: Madeleine BlaisMadeleine BlaisMadeleine Blais is a United States journalist, author and professor in the University of Massachusetts Amherst's journalism department. As a reporter for the The Miami Herald, Blais earned the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1980 for "Zepp's Last Stand", a story about a self-declared pacifist...
, Miami Herald, "for 'Zepp's Last Stand.'" - 1981: Teresa CarpenterTeresa CarpenterTeresa Carpenter is a Pulitzer prize winning, bestselling American author. She was born in Independence, Missouri, and lives with her husband Steven Levy in New York's Greenwich Village.-Awards:...
, Village Voice, "for her account of the death of actress-model Dorothy StrattenDorothy StrattenDorothy Stratten was a Canadian model and actress. Stratten was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for August 1979, Playmate of the Year in 1980 and was the second Playmate born in the 1960s. Stratten appeared in three comedy films and at least two episodes of shows broadcast on US network...
." (The prize in this category was originally awarded to Janet CookeJanet CookeJanet Leslie Cooke is an American former journalist who became infamous when it was discovered that a Pulitzer Prize–winning story that she had written for The Washington Post had been fabricated.-Early career:...
of The Washington Post, but was revoked after it was revealed that her winning story about an 8-year-old heroin addict was fabricated.) - 1982: Saul Pett, Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, "for an article profiling the federal bureaucracy." - 1983: Nan C. RobertsonNan C. RobertsonNan C. Robertson was an American journalist, author and instructor in journalism.-Five decades in journalism:...
, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, "for her memorable and medically detailed account of her struggle with toxic shock syndromeToxic shock syndromeToxic shock syndrome is a potentially fatal illness caused by a bacterial toxin. Different bacterial toxins may cause toxic shock syndrome, depending on the situation. The causative bacteria include Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes...
." - 1984: Peter Mark Rinearson, The Seattle TimesThe Seattle TimesThe Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...
, "for 'Making It Fly,' his 29,000-word account of the development, manufacture, and marketing of the new Boeing 757Boeing 757The Boeing 757 is a mid-size, narrow-body twin-engine jet airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Passenger versions of the twinjet have a capacity of 186 to 289 persons and a maximum range of , depending on variant and cabin configuration...
" jetliner. - 1985: Alice Steinbach, The Baltimore SunThe Baltimore SunThe Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
, "for her account of a blind boy's world, 'A Boy of Unusual Vision.'" - 1986: John CampJohn Sandford (novelist)John Sandford is the pseudonym of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling novelist John Roswell Camp. Camp was born on February 23, 1944, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He received a Bachelor's in American History and a Master's in Journalism from the University of Iowa.From 1971 to 1978,...
, St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, "for his five-part series examining the life of an American farm family faced with the worst U.S. agricultural crisis since the DepressionGreat DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
." - 1987: Steve Twomey, The Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
, "for his illuminating profile of life aboard an aircraft carrierAircraft carrierAn aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
." - 1988: Jacqui Banaszynski, St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, "for her moving series about the life and death of an AIDSAIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
victim in a rural farm community." - 1989: David Zucchino, The Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
, "for his richly compelling series, 'Being Black in South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.'" - 1990: Dave Curtin, Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, "for a gripping account of a family's struggle to recover after its members were severely burned in an explosion that devastated their home."
- 1991: Sheryl James, St. Petersburg TimesSt. Petersburg TimesThe St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...
, "for a compelling series about a mother who abandoned her newborn child and how it affected her life and those of others." - 1992: Howell RainesHowell RainesHowell Hiram Raines was Executive Editor of The New York Times from 2001 until he left in 2003 in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal. He is the father of Jeff Raines, one of the founding members of the rock band Galactic...
, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, "for 'Grady's Gift,' an account of the author's childhood friendship with his family's black housekeeper and the lasting lessons of their relationship." - 1993: George Lardner Jr., The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, "for his unflinching examination of his daughter's murder by a violent man who had slipped through the criminal justice system." - 1994: Isabel WilkersonIsabel WilkersonIsabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and the author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.-Biography:...
, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, "for her profile of a fourth-grader from ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
's South Side and for two stories reporting on the Midwestern flood of 1993." - 1995: Ron SuskindRon SuskindRon Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist and best-selling author. He was the senior national affairs writer for The Wall Street Journal from 1993 to 2000 and has published the books A Hope in the Unseen, The Price of Loyalty, The One Percent Doctrine, The Way of the World and...
, The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, "for his stories about inner-city honor students in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and their determination to survive and prosper." These articles would later become his first book "A Hope in the UnseenA Hope in the UnseenA Hope in the Unseen is the first book by author and journalist Ron Suskind, published in 1998. The book is a biographical novel about the life of Cedric Jennings through his last years in high school and first years in college...
" - 1996: Rick BraggRick BraggRick Bragg is an American author and journalist known for his non-fiction books, especially those on his family in Alabama...
, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, "for his elegantly written stories about contemporary America." - 1997: Lisa Pollak, The Baltimore SunThe Baltimore SunThe Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
, "for her compelling portrait of a baseball umpire who endured the death of a son while knowing that another son suffers from the same deadly genetic disease." - 1998: Thomas FrenchThomas FrenchThomas French is an American journalist. He worked for the St. Petersburg Times from 1981 until he took early retirement to teach in 2008...
, St. Petersburg TimesSt. Petersburg TimesThe St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...
, "for his detailed and compassionate narrative portrait of a mother and two daughters slain on a FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
vacation, and the three-year investigation into their murders." - 1999: Angelo B. Henderson, The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, "for his portrait of a druggist who is driven to violence by his encounters with armed robbery, illustrating the lasting effects of crime." - 2000: J.R. Moehringer, Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, "for his portrait of Gee's BendGee's Bend, AlabamaBoykin, also known as Gee's Bend, is an African American majority community and census-designated place in a large bend of the Alabama River in Wilcox County, Alabama. As of the 2010 census, its population was 275...
, an isolated river community in AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
where many descendants of slaves live, and how a proposed ferry to the mainland might change it." - 2001: Tom Hallman, Jr., The OregonianThe OregonianThe Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
(Portland, OregonPortland, OregonPortland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
), "for his poignant profile of a disfigured 14-year old boy who elects to have life-threatening surgery in an effort to improve his appearance." - 2002: Barry SiegelBarry SiegelBarry Siegel is a former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times who won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2002 for his piece "A Father's Pain, a Judge's Duty, and a Justice Beyond Their Reach." In 2003, University of California, Irvine recruited Siegel to chair the school's new...
, Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, "for his humane and haunting portrait of a man tried for negligence in the death of his son, and the judge who heard the case." - 2003: Sonia NazarioSonia NazarioSonia Nazario has written about social issues for more than two decades, most recently as a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She holds the distinctions of winning the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, and of being the youngest writer to be hired by the Wall Street Journal.She...
, Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, "for 'Enrique's Journey,' her touching, exhaustively reported story of a HonduranHondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
boy's perilous search for his mother who had migrated to the United States." - 2004: not awarded
- 2005: Julia KellerJulia KellerJulia Keller is an American writer. She won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her account of the deadly April 2004 Utica, Illinois tornado outbreak, which was published in the Chicago Tribune, where Keller works as cultural critic...
of Chicago TribuneChicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, "for her gripping, meticulously reconstructed account of a deadly 10-second tornado that ripped through Utica, Ill." - 2006: Jim Sheeler of Rocky Mountain NewsRocky Mountain NewsThe Rocky Mountain News was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As of March 2006, the Monday-Friday circulation was 255,427...
, "for his poignant story on a Marine majorMajorMajor is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
who helps the families of comrades killed in Iraq cope with their loss and honor their sacrifice." - 2007: Andrea ElliottAndrea ElliottAndrea Elliott is an American journalist and a reporter for The New York Times. She received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for a series of articles on an Egyptian-born imam living in Brooklyn.-Biography:...
of The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, for 'Muslims in America Series,' "her intimate, richly textured portrait of an immigrant imamImamAn imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
striving to find his way and serve his faithful in America." - 2008: Gene WeingartenGene WeingartenGene Weingarten is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist known for both his serious and humorous work...
of The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, for 'Pearls Before Breakfast,' "his chronicling of a world-class violinist who, as an experiment, played beautiful music in a subway station filled with unheeding commuters." - 2009: Lane DeGregory of St. Petersburg TimesSt. Petersburg TimesThe St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...
, for 'The Girl in the Window,' "her moving, richly detailed story of a neglected little girl, found in a roach-infested room, unable to talk or feed herself, who was adopted by a new family committed to her nurturing. - 2010: Gene WeingartenGene WeingartenGene Weingarten is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist known for both his serious and humorous work...
of The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, for 'Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?,' "his haunting story about parents, from varying walks of life, who accidentally kill their children by forgetting them in cars."
External links
- The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing winners and finalists at pulitzer.org