Claim: The Matrix Awards, first awarded in 1970 in the United States, are awarded for excellence in media achievements, and past winners have included novelists such as Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple.
Evidence: The Matrix Awards is an annual awards ceremony held by the Association for Women in Communications. It started in 1970 to honor exceptional women in the fields of arts, advertising, entertainment, film, television, theater, books, broadcasting, magazines, newspapers, public relations and new media. Past winners are Alice Walker, Eve Ensler, Katie Couric, Judy Corman, Anna Deavere Smith, Meryl Streep, Nora Ephron, Arianna Huffington, Toni Morrison, Barbara Walters, Rosie O'Donnell, Anna Quindlen, Elizabeth Winship, Meredith Vieira, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ellen DeGeneres, Christiane Amanpour, Amy Tan, Gloria Steinem, Thalía, Alix M. Freedman and Edie Falco. Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she wrote the novel The Color Purple, for which she won the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.