The MacArthur Foundation has just announced the 2007crop of MacArthur Fellows, commonly known as recipients of the Genius Grant. These are people who have been nominated for showing exceptional creativity in any field. **updated** Recent geniuses have been a poet, a forensic anthropologist, a blues musician, a medieval historian, or a clinical psychiatrist.** The fellowships are awarded to people whose work could most benefit from being released from financial restraints. Someone who already receives a few million in grants is probably not going to receive the fellowship and neither are Larry Page or Sergei Brin.
Aside from everyone calling you a genius, what's the perk in being a MacArthur Fellow? A cool $500,000 awarded over five years. Yet another reason to get into a field that you love and do what you believe.
Someday a librarian will be on that list.
A note on the update (if you're really, really curious). The original sentence read: A genius may be a poet, a forensic anthropologist, a blues musician, a medieval historian, or a clinical psychiatrist.
Upon rereading, I realized that the sentence implied that recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship could only be from those fields.
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