Clay Bennett

The son of a career army officer, Bennett led a nomadic life, attending ten different schools before graduating in 1980 from the University of North Alabama with degrees in Art and History. After brief stints as a staff artist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Fayetteville (NC) Times, Bennett served as the editorial cartoonist for the St. Petersburg Times (1981-1994) and The Christian Science Monitor (1997-2007) before joining the staff of the Chattanooga Times Free Press in late 2007. His work is distributed internationally by Counterpoint Licensing and Syndication. Recipient of The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 2002, Bennett has earned almost every honor his profession has to offer including the National Headliner Award (1999, 2000, 2004, 2016, 2023, 2024), Overseas Press Club Award (2005, 2007, 2017), Sigma Delta Chi Award (2001, 2017, 2019), National Cartoonists Society Award for Editorial Cartoons (2002, 2017), John Fischetti Award (2001, 2005), Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award (2007), United Nations/Ranan Lurie Award for Political Cartooning (2011) and the National Press Foundation’s Berryman Award (2014). Past President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, Bennett is the husband of artist Cindy Procious and father of Matt, Ben and Sarah.