(image via npr.org)

Spoiler alert: Ursula K. Le Guin won the National Book Awards last night. All of them.

Okay, perhaps that’s misleading. Le Guin took home the 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In the process, she stole the show (and our book loving hearts) with her acceptance speech, in which she warned against confusing a “market commodity” with “art”:

“Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between the production of a market commodity and a practice of an art.”(via Publisher’s Weekly)

She went on to say:

“I have had a long career and a good one, in good company. Now, here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds. But, the name of our beautiful reward is not…