Carl Sandburg Literary Awards

About a week ago, I was one of 89 Chicago artists/writers who were honored guests the annual Carl Sandburg Literary Award from the Chicago Library Foundation. This year's award winners were George R. R. Martin and Dr. Eve Ewing. Among the featured speakers was Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

I was so honored to be recognized as composer/writer among these extraordinary people--Chris Jones, Alex Kotlowitz, Chris Ware, Dave Hoekstra, Dr. Dipika Mukherjee, Elise Paschen, Luis Alberto Urrea, Joel Hall and many others.

This was a grand honor. Each of us also appeared on the giant silver screen. They played a video clip of "From Senegal To Seeger" and I was invited to play the banjo live on stage, ever so briefly.

On this day, the Chicago Public Library also dropped all their late return fines--but they still don't really encourage banjo playing in the library.