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Nashville Public Library Literary Award
Nashville Public Library Foundation and Nashville Public Library honored Doris Kearns Goodwin as the 2009 NPL Literary Award recipient, an award made possible by a gift from the Ingram Book Company. Presenting sponsors for the 2009 Literary Award and Gala events were the Robert A. Frist Family, Judy and Steve Turner, together with Laura Turner ,and Barbara and Gary Haugen. 

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer and historian. She was a White House Fellow and Presidential assistant during the Johnson administration. Ms. Goodwin taught at Harvard University. She was the first female journalist to enter the Red Sox locker room, and consulted on and appeared in Ken Burns' documentary, Baseball.

The Literary Award weekend began on November 6th with a Patrons Party, hosted by Jack and Barbara Bovender and Margaret Ann Robinson, at the home of Margaret Ann Robinson. NPLF's Patrons enjoyed a unique opportunity to be part of an intimate conversation about her work between Ms. Goodwin and John Seigenthaler.

The Literary Award Public Lecture was held on Saturday, November 7th at 10:00 a.m. at the Downtown Nashville Library.  Over 650 people attended filling the library's veiwing areas to capacity.  Special thanks to the volunteers and library staff who made the evnt go smoothly.

The evening of November 7th held the beautiful Literary Award Gala at the Main Library on Church Street. The evening began with cocktails in Ingram Hall, followed by dinner and remarks by Ms. Goodwin in the Beautiful Grand Reading Room.
     Grand Reading Room
     Literary Award Gala

The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.

-Carl Sagan

photo by Peyton Hoge
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