Certifiable geniuses Mercedes Doretti (top), Lynn Nottage (center), and Joan Snyder (bottom).

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The MacArthur Foundation reached into the swarming masses of insecure and striving Brooklyn literati this week and decreed three of them geniuses. Now that they’ve been honored for “their creativity, originality and potential to make important contributions,” Mercedes Doretti of Clinton Hill, Lynn Nottage of Boerum Hill, and Joan Snyder of Park Slope need no longer lie awake at night struggling with their insecurities.

Doretti is the co-founder of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and has pioneered the use of forensic technology (think “CSI”) to uncover human rights abuses all over the world.

Playwright Nottage, whose works include “Intimate Apparel” and “Fabulation,” writes dramas that grapple with the continuing effects of the African Diaspora.

And Snyder, who splits her time between the Slope and upstate, has spent the past four decades mixing abstract genres. She has pieces in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum, among others.

Thanks to the MacArthur fellows, each member of the trio gets $500,000 over the next five years, “no strings attached.” As part of our second annual Genius Smackdown, Brooklyn Paper reporter Dana Rubinstein, no intellectual slouch, you know, checked in this week with all three recipients to find out how good it must feel to have substantive proof of their intellectual prowess.

Q: How does did it feel to know once and for all that you are a genius?

Doretti: No, but I don’t think I’m a genius. It’s sort of funny. I don’t know.

Nottage: I’m not getting a grant because I’m a genius, but because I’m a creative person. They don’t call it a genius grant — the media overlays it with that moniker. The grant recognizes people who have carved a unique path in this cultural landscape and the grant encourages them to continue to do that.”

Snyder: I don’t know. They don’t tell you you’re a genius. I was just trying to ask someone where that all come from.

Q: Genius or not, it must feel pretty nice to be singled out with a MacArthur.

Doretti: It feels great. And, it brings more legitimacy to what we do, to apply forensic sciences to human rights investigations. And, I think it’s a recognition of the major problem that we have: hundreds of thousands of people around their world have been disappeared.

Nottage: It feels as wonderful it did [last week, when I found out]. Now [that it’s public], I can openly share my delight.

Snyder: I’m over the moon. It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in a long, long time. You have a baby, then you have a MacArthur.”

Q: Do you anticipate the whole genius thing opening some doors for you?

Doretti: It should help with funding and access. And, it brings more respect for people working in this field.

Nottage: I do anticipate it will open some doors. [But] I just got an e-mail from a friend who won a MacArthur last year, and she said it made the critics much nastier to her … I have no idea why, other than that it places a magnifying glass on the work, and people tend to scrutinize it more. … There’s the expectation that everything you do will be labeled magnificent.

Snyder: I’m sure my galleries will put the work up a little bit for the moment.

Q: What are you working on right now?

Doretti: I’m working on two main projects — one in Mexico, on the border with the United States, where a number of women have been killed. And then we are about to launch a major genetic project in Argentina and two other Latin American countries, basically using DNA technology that was upgraded to identify remains from 9-11 and the Balkans to identify victims of human rights violations.

Nottage: I am actually getting ready to workshop a play in Chicago at the end of the week called “Ruined,” which takes place in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s about a woman who runs a brothel for women who have escaped the war.

Snyder: I’m working up here [near Woodstock] on some really beautiful paintings. … I’m really hoping this doesn’t throw me off-balance.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper