Vinson Cunningham (Journalism) was named a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. The annual awards honor “excellence in journalism and the arts.”
In the finalist citation, the Pulitzer Prize Board recognized Cunningham’s “illuminating and personal reviews of work that appears on television, streaming services or social media, trenchant criticism that explores contemporary issues and society.”
Cunningham is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the co-host of the magazine’s weekly arts and culture podcast, Critics at Large. His debut novel, “Great Expectations,” was published in 2024 and was named included on several year-end “best of” book lists from media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and more. Cunningham was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2024.
He is a visiting lecturer in the Humanities Council and McGraw Professor of Writing in the Program in Journalism. In his second year in the program at Princeton, he will teach the Spring 2026 McGraw Seminar in Writing, which will focus on the ways that journalism and creative nonfiction can tell stories about people.
