“The honorees include relatively well-known figures in the arts like the poet Claudia Rankine, 53, whose book Citizen, (2014) which explored racism in everyday life …; the essayist Maggie Nelson, 43, who won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism for The Argonauts;” sculptor Vincent Fecteau; composer Julia Wolfe; graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang; playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; cultural historian Josh Kun; and video artist Mary Reid Kelley.