Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a 31 year-old playwright who focuses on issues such as identity, family, class, and race.

“We try to reach people who have shown evidence of exceptional creativity but show the potential for more in the future.”

This morning, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced this year’s crop of Fellows — you know, the people that are commonly referred to as recipients of the “Genius Award”. The list includes plenty of deserving winners, including a local lawyer, Marie-Therese Connolly.

The Post notes yesterday that native Washingtonian and author Edward Jones has been named a MacArthur Fellow. Jones, recipient of the National Book Critics Circle award and the Pulitzer Prize for his novel “The Known World”, will receive $500,000 from the MacArthur Foundation, spread out quarterly over five years. Jones has lived in the D.C. area for most of his life. His first book, the short story collection “Lost in the City””, tells fourteen stories…