Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award

Wendell Berry stands as one of the most decorated American authors today. The Tulsa Library Trust has added yet another honor to his list: the prolific writer of fiction, poetry and essays is recipient of the next Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. Berry will receive the award at the black-tie dinner on Dec. 7 at Tulsa City-County Library’s Central Library. The Kentucky author will also give a free public presentation at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 8. Berry has won the T.S. Eliot Award, Thomas Merton Award, a National Humanities Medal and the Poets’ Prize in addition to the Guggenheim Fellowship and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. One of his best known works, 2004’s Hannah Coulter, embodies many of the themes Berry worked into his fiction and poetry and that mirrored his activism against the industrialization of agriculture. Berry will speak at the events, both taking place at Central Library. For tickets to the Dec. 7 gala, go to www.helmerichaward.org.