Edna Ferber will join Dorothy Parker in the New York Writers Hall of Fame, it was announced last night at the Forbes Gallery on Fifth Avenue. Ferber will join 13 other writers, four living, the others deceased, in the Class of 2012. A gala on June 5 at the Princeton Club will honor all inductees.
The evening was hosted by Bob Forbes and many state authors, librarians and literary professionals attended the cocktail party. As each name was announced, a rousing round of applause greeted each one.
It is a diverse list of New Yorkers who are being honored. Ferber, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her 1924 novel So Big, was a member of the Algonquin Round Table with Parker. In 2011, Parker was inducted into the hall of fame, joining such luminaries as Willa Cather, Herman Melville and E.B. White.
The living writers who join the hall in 2012:
1. E.L. Doctorow
2. Pete Hamill
3. Toni Morrison
4. Joyce Carol Oates
Writers who will be honored posthumously:
1. John Cheever
2. Hart Crane
3. Edna Ferber
4. Washington Irving
5. Henry James
6. Mary McCarthy
7. Marianne Moore
8. Barbara Tuchman
9. Kurt Vonnegut
10. Richard Wright
The event is the work of the Empire State Center for the Book, an affiliate of the United States Library of Congress. Each has a different focus, but the mission of each is to sponsor programs and highlight their area’s literary heritage, call attention to the importance of books, reading, literacy, and libraries. The Empire State Center for the Book sponsors the Empire State Book Festival and the Letters About Literature program. The Hall of Fame is being created at the State Library in Albany.
Congratulations to all the winners, and to the readers who keep buying their books.