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Another big prize is the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award,
designed to sustain midcareer poets who are still on their way to
who's who territory. The Kingsley will be a hefty $100,000 in 2006.
And for those who need even earlier
encouragement, the Kingsley Discovery Award for a first book of poems is $10,000
-- the same amount as a Pulitzer.
The other poor sibling of literature has always been
the short-fiction writer. But that's changing, with the
$35,000 euro Frank O'Connor Award in short fiction.
The
extra perks of fame
When you win a huge literary prize, the little things change, too.
"You know you've hit it big when you have
an agent solely for your readings," says Robin Hemley, director of the Nonfiction
Writing Program at the University of Iowa, which has graduated literary stars
like Guggenheim winner Jo Ann Beard.
"I don't know that
it's based so much on winning a major award unless one also has some business
savvy. "I know one Pulitzer-prize winning poet whose reading
fees I'm sure are pretty low, but Billy Collins has a reading agent, and I think
he had one before he became Poet Laureate, after he started reading on Prairie
Home Companion." A prize doesn't lock anything in, Hemley
says. "A lot of people win major awards and then kind
of sink back into the literary landscape while others, such as David Sedaris or
Dave Eggers, become literary icons," Hemley says. No
one gets rich publishing in literary magazines, but famous writers do have some
bargaining power there.
"I've heard some awfully high fees asked by writers,
up in the multiple thousands, and they tend to go to the best-known,
meaning prize-winners, but I have no specific information especially
on how a given prize, say a Pulitzer, lofts a particular person,"
says David Hamilton, editor of the prestigious Iowa Review.
"I've never lost
a Charles Wright or Jorie Graham for not being able to offer more, those few times
anyway when I've asked for something special." Graham
and Wright are poetry Pulitzer winners. "For our part,
we don't think we're here chiefly either for the famous or to be famous,"
Hamilton says, "though we're happy for fame to smile on us now and then when
it so chooses." No guarantees
You
may want to adjust your star fantasies to include the possibility that not much
will change after a walk down the red carpet. "Some people
have won Tonys who vanished and you've never heard from them again," says
Seward. "With an Oscar, it happens, but it's rarer." There
are always very talented people who win, who are admired and who still don't seem
to rake in piles of cash. If this happens to you, know that
you are in very good company. William Faulkner, for instance, won the Nobel but
certainly never was anything near wealthy.
And if you never win a prize, think of the composers.
Franz Schubert never sold a thing in his lifetime. Mozart
died penniless.
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