Former Library of Congress librarian Carla Hayden was celebrated Monday at the Authors Guild’s annual dinner-gala in New York, nearly a year after President Donald Trump abruptly fired her from the job. Hayden, 73, stood before hundreds of cheering members of the literary community as the Authors Guild honored her with a Champion of Writers Award at Cipriani Wall Street.
In remarks that did not directly mention Trump or her ouster, Hayden emphasized what she described as the role of libraries as a bridge between writers and the general public. She told the audience that libraries are “where storytelling meets opportunity” and that they provide spaces where children can discover books, where new Americans find language and belonging, and where communities can see themselves in literature.
Hayden, who headed the Library of Congress from 2016-2025 and became the first woman and first Black person appointed to lead the agency, said libraries act as “engines of accessibility and inclusion” and as havens for free expression as book bans rise. She argued that librarians remain steady “at a time of record-high book bans,” and added that “in many places today, librarians are under attack” for backing free access to reading.
The gala also marked a forum for the Writers Guild’s priorities, with the program including awards and remarks tied to debates over censorship, writers’ rights, and other issues affecting published authors. Author David Baldacci attended and denounced artificial intelligence, which has been the subject of lawsuits filed by writers against Microsoft and OpenAI and other companies over allegations their work was used without permission for generative AI programs.
During the evening, Baldacci’s name was invoked when the group presented a prize to novelist Percival Everett, awarding him the Baldacci Award for Literary Activism. Everett, 69, whose novel “James” won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, joked about receiving an honor for activism, and he referred indirectly to Hayden’s departure by describing a future he said he finds plausible in which the library’s holdings would be limited to authors favored by conservatives.
Everett’s remarks included a line reflecting his view of how restricted collections would be, saying he was “sad” about such a scenario. Amy Tan, 74, was cited for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community, and she also described a personal history of how writing shaped her worldview. Tan offered an account of her early experience when a minister chastised her for reading “The Catcher in the Rye,” and later, she described being assaulted, saying it left her devastated and questioning everything before steering her toward storytelling she described as compassionate and “political.”
Tan said books have consequences that extend beyond an author’s intentions, arguing that “books, by their nature, have far reaching consequences regardless of our conscious intentions,” and that readers respond and then act on those reactions. The Authors Guild honored the three honorees together at the dinner-gala: Hayden, Everett, and Tan.