Patti Smith is just an award-winning author now.
The rock singer/songwriter picked up the National Book Award for Nonfiction this week for her memoir Just Kids, which details her lifelong friendship with late artist Robert Mapplethorpe and their experiences in the 1960s-70s New York art scene.
In her acceptance speech at the ceremony in New York, a tearful Smith said, “I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf. Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.”
She also recalled her days shelving National Book Award winners while a clerk at Scribner’s Bookstore. "I used to wonder what it would feel like. Thank you for letting me find out."
Congratulations, Patti!
