Marie Mutsuki Mockett

You can't really tell, but this is a photo of Edwidge Danticat, who has just won the Brooklyn Book Festival "BoBi" award. I thought about congratulating her--our essays are side by side in Creative Nonfiction. But that just seemed like a silly thing to do, though she radiated kindness.

Later in the evening, Alexander Hemon won the first ever St. Francis College Literary Prize, established to honor a "mid career" writer.

So many writers in the room that evening. New York is such a city of artists.