Kirkus held its annual Kirkus Prize ceremony Thursday, and is asking viewers to help booksellers and authors in need.
Kirkus CEO Meg LaBorde Kuehn, who hosted the Nov. 5 award ceremony, appealed to those watching to make donations to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc), which provides emergency financial grants to bookstore employees, and to the Authors League Fund, which helps writers in financial need.
“As we celebrate the outstanding books of the year, we also want to remember the many people in our industry who are struggling because of the pandemic and economic downturn,” said Kuehn. “This is the perfect opportunity for all of us to give back to the booksellers and writers who are the essential workers of the book world.”
Covid-19 has caused many bookstores to furlough or lay off employees, and many authors have suffered a loss of revenue over the past several months because of the pandemic.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
