This is a big honor, it's one of a small handful of major prizes in the field. I'll be attending a gala dinner in DC in February, and I believe giving a speech, though I don't really know any details yet. But this is a big deal, and comes at a good moment. The last year or two had a lot of (what at least felt like) setbacks, between the esteemed left wing magazine dumping me and the publisher who said they were sending over a contract and then ghosted me like a Tinder date gone wrong (I am not actually on Tinder, but that's kind of the go-to for a dating app reference). And then there's the outcome of the election, but we're all going through that one collectively. At any rate, I was starting to feel kind of discouraged, in a low-level but pervasive way. So this is a nice little moment of affirmation, as I join a roster of my distinguished colleagues — Jen Sorensen, Ruben Bolling, and Ward Sutton, among others — who have previously won the honor. I'd say I'm happy to "finally" have won it, but the truth is, this is the only major award whose deadline is in the fall, rather than the start of the year, and for years I kept forgetting to send a submission in on time! I finally put a reminder in my calendar this year, and happily the stars aligned.
This may be the last big award of my career. I've previously won the RFK (named after SENIOR, to be clear) on two occasions, and the Herblock, and I was a Pulitzer finalist one year, which is probably as close as I'm getting to that one, given that they've effectively eliminated the old "editorial cartooning" category and replaced it with a grab bag that encompasses anything involving drawing. But that feels like plenty to me, honestly more than I would have ever expected back at the other end of this journey. I have no complaints.
There's a nice article about the award, which includes some pretty deep-dive history, in my "hometown" paper, Little Village out of Iowa City.
Funny story, the National Press Club people notified me by email on the Friday before Thanksgiving week, but I didn't see the email. When it finally popped up again a week and a half later, I assumed it must be a "thank you for entering" message, because *surely* they would have already notified the actual winner by that point!
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