Andrea
Barrett '74, who won the National Book Award in 1996 for her collection Ship
Fever and Other Stories, was one of twenty-three winners this fall of a grant
from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The
awards – popularly known as the “genius awards” – consist of $500,000 to each
recipient over a five-year period.
Barrett,
who received an honorary doctor of letters degree from the College in 1996, is
a part-time instructor in the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson
College in Swannanoa, N.C. A biology major at Union, she is the author of a
number of books that show her interest in science and history, including The
Forms of Water, The Voyage of the Narwhal, and The Middle Kingdom.