What a fantasy: to wake up one morning out of the blue to a phone call telling you that you’ve been awarded a $500,000 "Genuis Grant" just because you’re you.

The MacArthur Fellows Program does just that. The five-year, unrestricted fellowships are awarded to individuals across all ages and fields who show exceptional merit and promise of continued creative work.

Brooklyn writer Jonathan Lethem, author of "Motherless Brooklyn" and "Fortress of Solitude"  had that kind of morning just a few days ago. He is one of group of talented individuals all over the country who got the news this week.

I’ve heard that many fellows get the call and think it’s a joke, a friend pulling a prank or something. The foundation is so used to this they direct the recipient to a special web site, where they can check on the veracity of the call. The recipients then have to stay mum for a few days, telling only family and close friends, until the public announcement.

It must be hard to keep silent on the news that you’ve just won enough money to wipe away all your money worries so that you can continue your creative pursuit.

Lethem, who was born and raised in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill neighborhood, is the only creative writer on this year’s list. My first reaction was: isn’t he already rich and famous? Surely there’ are other great writers who could use the monetary support of the foundation. I thought the awards were for genuises of the unsung variety.

But then I realized that an award like this might encourage Lethem to continue writing his brilliantly rendered narratives of Brooklyn characters. Sentence to sentence, he’s one of the best writing fiction today. And now he will be free to write what he wants, not what sells.

Besides, Lethem’s books, especially "Motherless Brooklyn" and "Fortress of Solitude" are  absolutely teriffic.

At a time when redevelopment and gentrification are hot button issues in New York City, Lethem’s work has special resonance. In "Fortress," he writes about growing up in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn during the 1970s, a time when the neighborhood was in the process of gentrification and full of race and class tensions. He vividly renders the physical and social worlds his characters inhabit, in the schoolyards, on the stoops of Brooklyn.

As a literary stylist, he is also much lauded for his ability to mix and match genres like comics, noir, and literary fiction "He weaves the conventions of noir mysteries, westerns, science fiction, and comic books into narratives that explore the relationship between high art and popular culture," writes his MacArthur Foundation bio.

This year’s list includes many scientists, a fisherman, a violinmaker, a vehicle emmissions specialist, a rare book preservationist, a painter, sculptor, and a conductor. It also includes the photographer, Fazal Sheikh, who uses "the personalizing power of portraiture to bring the faces of the world