Pulitzer surprise.

In a watershed moment for gay visibility, four Pulitzer Prizes go to gay and lesbian authors

The announcement of the 1999 Pulitzer awards in April marked a high point for gay and lesbian letters. While only one of the awards was for gay-specific writing, four of the honorees--for fiction, drama, biography, and editorial coverage--are themselves gay.

"It's thrilling to see so many queers recognized," says Michael Cunningham. whose novel The Hours took the Pulitzer for fiction. "Whether they're writing about gay lives or not, this is a good thing." Cunningham's novel, which also won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a runner-up for the National Book Critics Circle prize earlier this year, is an homage to Virginia Woolf.

Set partly in the 1920s, The Hours follows Woolf as she writes her acclaimed novel Mrs. Dalloway, the book's other story line concerns gay men in contemporary New York City, one of whom is dying of AIDS. Cunningham, who teaches creative writing at Columbia University, says he never expected the book to be particularly well received. "I told my editor this book would sell about six copies," he says. "I never could have foreseen this." The writer credits his lover, Ken Korbett, with a good part of the book's success. "He's my mentor and my muse, and he's more responsible than any another person for how the book came out," Cunningham says.

Gay journalist Jonathan Capehart agrees with Cunningham that "it's really wonderful seeing out gay people receiving this kind of honor." Capehart--along with members of the New York Daily News editorial board--was awarded the Pulitzer for a series of articles about Harlem's legendary Apollo Theatre.

"I'm elated and honored," says Capehart, who's been deluged with E-mall messages and phone calls from well-wishers. "But really the whole thing hasn't sunk in yet."

Among other honorees is first-time playwright Margaret Edson, a kindergarten teacher who lives in Atlanta. Although her critically acclaimed drama, Wit--about a 50-ish college professor dying of ovarian cancer--was passed over for Tony award consideration (it was playing in an unrecognized theater), Edson seemed satisfied with the play's Pulitzer honor.

"I was cleaning up the classroom when I heard the news," Edson told the Daily News. "Now I hear that not only did I win the prize, but money goes with it too!" Edson said the first person she called was her partner, Linda Merrill, a curator at Atlanta's High Museum. Then, because there was no champagne handy, she toasted her win with a half-pint carton of chocolate milk.

The biography prize went to Lindbergh, A. Scott Berg's book about the aviator Charles Lindbergh. "This is the most exciting day since Anne Morrow [Lindbergh] gave me permission to write the book," the newspaper quoted Berg, who dedicated the volume in part to his male partner.

"I don't know that there are necessarily more gay people receiving the Pulitzer this year," Capehart says, "or that the Pulitzer board is more forward-thinking this year. I think it's more an indication of the times. There are more openly gay people today, so the honorees reflect a more diverse people."

Pela is coauthor of the upcoming Idol! The Who's Who of Fifty Years of Teen Heartthrobs.