In this week’s Wednesday 5: Four women bring home the Pulitzer Prize; Summer 2014 could be the summer of women in film; 16 women behind innovative digital media organizations; a flight attendant finds a comedic solution to getting passengers’ attention; and actress Mindy Kaling says that her beauty choices should NOT be considered “courageous.”

1.

Women and the Pulitzer Prize

The 98th annual Pulitzer Prizes, which honor excellence in journalism and the arts, were announced Monday. Four incredibly gifted women received individual prizes in their fields. They include:

Criticism

Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer for her criticism of architecture—criticism that blends expertise, civic passion, and sheer readability into arguments that consistently stimulate and surprise.

Fiction

Donna Tartt, author of The Goldfinch (Little, Brown), a beautifully written coming-of-age novel with exquisitely drawn characters that follows a grieving boy’s entanglement with a small famous painting that has eluded destruction. A book that stimulates the mind and touches the heart.

Drama

Annie Baker, for the The Flick, a thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage.

Biography

Megan Marshall for Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), a richly researched book that tells the remarkable story of a 19th century author, journalist, critic, and pioneering advocate of women’s rights who died in a shipwreck.

2.

Summer 2014 Could Be a Great Summer for Women in Film

Adam Vary of BuzzFeed reminds us that last year, the summer of 2013, there was ONE film that featured a predominantly female cast and that was released in more than 1,000 theaters by a major studio. That movie was The Heat. Yep! The Heat was the “compelling” women-led Hollywood blockbuster. Vary shares:

It remains standard operating procedure in Hollywood to release droves of male-dominated films into the multiplex—at least 15 are due from studios this summer. . . but a studio movie focusing on women continues to be such a rare occurrence, especially during the summer, that it is usually burdened with representing the success or failure of all potential studio movies about women.

However, this summer, Vary points out 14 we can look forward to. Take a look at the summer list  and mark your summer calendar.

3.

Women Behind Media

As a media organization, Women’s Voices for Change is not only woman-centered but woman-led. Unfortunately, women-led media organizations and publications like ours are still very much underrepresented and underappreciated. In response, the folks at the Columbia Journalism Review profiled 16 accomplished women who have left the confines of traditional journalism to embark on starting their own media startups. Take a look at the list and support these women: