I don't know about you, but I feel as though this year's list of Pulitzer Prize winners is a perfect representation of the year's work. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post did excellent work dogging Donald Trump all year long. Oakland's East Bay Times is a great paper that never gets recognized for its excellent work.

And the book choices are exactly as they should be. Colson Whitehead's brilliant novel The Underground Railroad absolutely deserved to win the prize. It's great to see Seattle poetry press Wave Books win for Tyehimba Jess's book Olio, and I've heard Matthew Desmond's book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City described as one of the most important books written about American cities in the last few years. I'm excited to read that one soon.

And it's fitting that Seattle Times book critic Mary Ann Gwinn — herself a Pulitzer winner — was on the committee to choose the fiction award this year:

It's true - I was a juror for the @PulitzerPrize fiction award this year, along with @twiceaprince and the brilliant Lan Samantha Chang. https://t.co/jathnEekVx

— Mary Ann Gwinn (@gwinnma) April 10, 2017

Earlier this year, the Seattle Times chose to buy Gwinn out of her job as books editor as a cost-cutting measure. Her position on the Pulitzer committee is a perfectly timed show of respect from her fellow critics, and it makes the short-sightedness of the Times's choice even more apparent.

The Seattle Times did not win any Pulitzers this year.

UPDATE 5:06 PM: This post has been updated to clarify the fact that Whitehead's novel is awesome. My original language about was inexact. Apologies to Whitehead and to anyone who was confused by my language.