On October 7, I was honored to give the legislative welcome at the 25th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards hosted by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.
I was also deeply proud to celebrate four outstanding authors from the Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester district recognized at these awards for their literary contributions.
- Jarrett Krosoczka – inaugural Award Winner in the Graphic Novel category for their book Sunshine
- Nicholas Day – receiving honors in the Picture Book/Early Reader category for their book Nothing: John Cage and 4’33”
- Britt Crow-Miller – being named a Must-Read Picture Book author for their book World of Rot
- Mk Smith Despres – being named a Must-Read Picture Book author for their book Night Song
Read on for my legislative welcome.
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It’s my pleasure to welcome you to the 25th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards program.
I represent the Hampshire, Franklin, and Worcester district, which just happens to overlap with one of the most book-loving, and author-dense corridors in the Commonwealth (if not the whole nation).
Please join me in thanking the Center for the Book team as well as its Board of Directors for focusing us — as they do — on great writing, while also asking us to care deeply about developing, supporting, and promoting cultural programming that advances the causes of books and reading across the Commonwealth. This especially important work now, amid a spike in efforts to curtail free expression and art.
The Center for the Book is holding fast and it — and the authors it celebrates deserves our steadfast support.
My district also happens to lay claim to one of the world’s most legendary poets, Amherst’s own Emily Dickinson. I thought that it would be fitting to open by sharing a poem with you from the “Belle of Amherst.” As Dickinson writes (and I quote): “Luck is not chance—It’s Toil— / Fortune’s expensive smile / Is earned.”
During Dickinson’s lifetime, only eleven of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published, with most of these appearing in Massachusetts newspapers like the Springfield Republican. While her work was little known among her contemporaries, and there were no major literary awards in nineteenth-century Massachusetts, she knew what it meant to toil—to put in the time.
It’s not luck or chance that brought the Massachusetts Book Award-winners to the State House today. It’s hard work, it’s years of honing their craft, and developing their voice.
