Author, radio host, and poetry almanacker Garrison Keillor will receive the 2007 John Steinbeck Award tomorrow, putting him in an elite group that also includes Bruce Springsteen, Arthur Miller, Jackson Browne, Studs Terkel, Joan Baez, Sean Penn and John Sayles. Explaining the selection, Thomas Steinbeck invoked a quotation from his father: "The basic responsibility of all committed artists must be to remind people of their own inherent and unwavering humanity, and to do so without critical bias. The artist must learn to rely upon and nurture empathy and compassion, and do so with a joyful heart."

(Our frivolous photo of Keillor comes from his appearance at the Library of America gala last spring.)