The National Book Foundation announced this morning that it would be awarding the Distinguished Contribution to American Letters medal to Adrienne Rich this year, while the Literarian Award (for "outstanding service to the American literary community") will go to Robert Silvers and the late Barbara Epstein, founding co-editors of the New York Review of Books. These honors will be presented along with the usual four awards for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children's books at the National Book Awards ceremony on November 15, which will be hosted this year by Fran Lebowitz. Finalists for the prizes will be announced on October 15 in a press conference at Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.