The MacArthur Foundation announced the winners of their annual fellowships on Wednesday, including authors Ocean Vuong, Valeria Luiselli, and Lynda Barry.

The writers were among 26 artists, scholars, and intellectuals to receive so-called “genius” grants—$625,000 cash prizes awarded to “individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future.”

Poet and novelist Ocean Vuong, a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize for his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, was honored by the foundation for “marrying folkloric traditions with linguistic experimentation in works that explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, the refugee experience, and the complexities of identity and desire with eloquence and clarity.”

Another Kirkus Prize finalist, Lost Children Archive author Valeria Luiselli, was given a grant for “challenging conventional notions of authorship in fiction, essays, and inventive hybrids of the two that pose profound questions about the various ways we piece together stories and document the lives of others.”

Lynda Barry, the alternative cartoonist known for her graphic novels The Good Times Are Killing Me and Cruddy, earned a fellowship for “inspiring creative engagement through original graphic works and a teaching practice centered on the role of image making in communication.”

Scholar Emily Wilson, whose translation of The Odyssey became a literary sensation in 2017, was also among the winners, cited for “bringing classical literature to new audiences in works that convey ancient texts’ relevance to our time and highlight the assumptions about social relations that underlie translation decisions.”

Michael Schaub is an Austin, Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.