James Alan McPherson

James Alan McPherson was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American short story writer and essayist. He spent his early career writing short stories and essays, almost without exception, for The Atlantic. At the age of 35, McPherson received a Pulitzer Prize for his collection of stories, Elbow Room (1978). He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1973) and the MacArthur Foundation Award (the so-called "Genius Award"; 1981) and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. He is perhaps most often quoted for propounding this philosophy of American citizenship: "I believe that if one can experience diversity, touch a variety of its people, laugh at its craziness, distill wisdom from its tragedies, and attempt to synthesize all this inside oneself without going crazy, one will have earned the right to call oneself 'citizen of the United States.'"