Pulitzer on the Road

Sanaz Toossi won the 2023 Pulitzer in Drama for her play, English, a powerful play about four Iranian adults preparing for an English language exam and grappling with how learning a new language may alter their identities and represent a new life. Sanaz takes us behind the scenes as she and her cast and crew prepare to open English on Broadway. Then, she and two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright Lynn Nottage discuss what it means to be a political writer, the ways they’ve incorporated joy and humor into stories about difficult topics, and how they maintain their artistic voices. 

To access this transcript and learn more about Sanaz Toossi and Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning work, visit Pulitzer on the Road.

Now a film critic for The New Yorker, Justin Chang won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for film reviews he wrote for the Los Angeles Times. Joe Morgenstern has been reviewing films since 1959 and won 2005 Pulitzer in Criticism for weekly reviews he published at The Wall Street Journal. On this episode, Justin and Joe meet in LA’s historic Egyptian Theater for an inter-generational conversation about their approaches to reviewing, how they’re experiencing changes in the film and media industries, and the weight of responsibility they each feel as critics.

To access this transcript and learn more about Justin Chang and Joe Morgenstern's Pulitzer-winning work, visit Pulitzer on the Road.

In 2023, California’s Santa Cruz County was hit with nine atmospheric rivers that caused widespread displacement and devastation. During this period, the six reporters on staff at Lookout Santa Cruz – a roughly two-year old digital news outlet – stretched themselves thin providing in-depth coverage of the region’s most vulnerable communities. Their efforts and reporting won them the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. In this episode, members of Lookout’s staff take us back to that time to discuss covering climate catastrophes as a small news organization and why local newsrooms are critical to upholding democracy.

To access this transcript and learn more about Lookout Santa Cruz's Pulitzer-winning work, visit Pulitzer on the Road.

Vladimir Kara-Murza won the 2024 Pulitzer in Commentary for opinion columns he wrote from solitary confinement in a Siberian prison. He and 2004 winner and Pulitzer Board member Anne Applebaum discuss how he published columns while imprisoned, what it was like being released in the largest US-Russia prisoner exchange since the Cold War, and why he believes democracy is inevitable for his homeland. 

To access this transcript and learn more about Vladimir Kara-Murza's Pulitzer-winning work, visit Pulitzer on the Road

The Pulitzer on the Road podcast is back for season two! What does it take to win a Pulitzer Prize? In each episode, we’ll hear winners in conversation with one another, sharing stories behind their prize-winning work. This packed season features conversations between journalists and historians Vladimir Kara-Murza and Anne Applebaum, novelists Jayne Anne Phillips and Viet Thanh Nguyen, playwrights Sanaz Toossi and Lynn Nottage, critics Justin Chang and Joe Morgenstern, biographer Jonathan Eig and journalist Yohance Lacour, investigative reporter Hannah Dreier and photo-journalists Gregory Bull and Iván Valencia, and critic Salamishah Tillet talking with journalists Sarah Conway and Trina Reynolds-Tyler.

An interview between Barbara Kingsolver, 2023 Prize winner for Fiction, and Emily Ramshaw of The 19th, on Kingsolver’s farm in Appalachia, about growing up in Appalachia, her life as a writer, and the unforgettable narrator she created in her novel, Demon Copperhead. 

To access the transcript and learn more about this episode, visit:

https://pulitzerontheroad.pulitzer.org/podcasts/podcast-barbara-kingsolver-appalachia

Hundreds of migrant parents and children were separated at the US-Mexico border under a Trump administration policy. Caitlin Dickerson, staff writer for The Atlantic, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. She visits El Paso and talks with Ginger Thompson of ProPublica.

To access the transcript and learn more about this episode, visit: 

https://pulitzerontheroad.pulitzer.org/podcasts/podcast-caitlin-dickerson-border

Hernan Diaz, 2023 Fiction winner, meets with Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Pulitzer board member and himself a previous Fiction winner, in a New York Gilded Age mansion to discuss Trust, Diaz’s novel that explores family, wealth and ambition.

To read the transcript and more about this episode, visit:

https://pulitzerontheroad.pulitzer.org/podcasts/podcast-hernan-diaz-and-viet-thanh-nguyen-conversation

Jefferson Cowie’s book Freedom’s Dominion gives the history of white Americans fighting for the freedom to dominate others and won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for History. In Eufaula, Alabama, he meets with Kelly Lytle Hernandez, history professor at the University of California Los Angeles.

To access the transcript and learn more about this episode, visit:

https://pulitzerontheroad.pulitzer.org/podcasts/podcast-jefferson-cowie-eufala-alabama

Mstyslav Chernov and a team of Associated Press journalists captured the horrors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Mariupol. He talks about their award-winning work for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with Nancy Barnes of the Boston Globe.

To read the transcript and find out more about this episode, visit:

https://pulitzerontheroad.pulitzer.org/podcasts/podcast-mstyslav-chernov-mariupol