When I closed The Grapes of Wrath, I was a different man.

The John Steinbeck Award is given to writers, artists, thinkers, and activists whose work captures Steinbeck’s empathy, commitment to democratic values, and belief in the dignity of people who by circumstance are pushed to the fringes.

First presented in 1996, the John Steinbeck Award is sponsored by the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies. Ted Cady, the chair of the Center’s award selection committee and Event Director for the Student Union, has organized all of the Award presentations and has brought each of the honorees to appreciate the Award’s meaning and the importance of Steinbeck’s legacy here at San José State.