For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Coleman
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
145 Ednam Drive Charlottesville, VA 22903
PH: 434-982-2983 FAX: 434-296-4714
Email: spcoleman@virgnia.edu
http://www.virginiafoundation.org/bookcenter
(electronic copies and accompanying graphics are available)
In honor of the Big Read in Virginia, the Virginia Center for the Book, a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, will be giving away two free Book Group Kits for the Big Read in Virginia’s featured book A Lesson Before Dying. The Big Read in Virginia is a statewide reading promotion program and runs from September 2009 through May 2010.
Each Book Group Kit includes 10 copies of A Lesson Before Dying; 10 Reader’s Guides; 10 Audio Guides; and 10 Big Read bookmarks; and 10 Virginia Festival of the Book cloth book bags. Two Book Groups will be selected at random and will be notified October 2 with shipment of the materials immediately following.
To enter send no later than September 30 an e-mail to spcoleman@virginia.edu or a fax to 434-296-4714 with the following information: (1) Name, address, e-mail and phone number of a contact person from the book group; (2) The number of people in the book group; (3) How often the book group meets and where (a home, a library, a bookstore, a coffee shop, etc).
Others interested in Reader’s and Audio Guides or Teacher’s Guides can contact Susan Coleman at spcoleman@virginia.edu or 434-982-2983 or visit virginiafoundation.org/bookcenter to request the materials.
The National Endowment for the Arts awarded grants to 269 organizations nationwide to host Big Read celebrations next fall and spring. The “Big Read in Virginia” is the only Big Read program that is a statewide program lasting nine months.
A Lesson Before Dying is set in the late 1940s in a rural Cajun town with residents living under Jim Crow laws and culture. Two men, one a prisoner and the other a teacher bound together by community and family, make a journey of self realization, human dignity, and redemption.
The Virginia Center for the Book is also home to the Virginia Festival of the Book, an annual event held each March in Charlottesville; the Virginia Arts of the Book Center; and the Virginia Literary Calendar. More information can be found at virginiafoundation.org/bookcenter.
The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. Support for The Big Read is provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. It is designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular culture. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 NEA report, identified acritical decline in reading for pleasure among American adults. The Big Read aims to address this issue directly by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities.
The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, based in Charlottesville, is a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the humanities, and to using the humanities to address issues of broad public concern. In all of its programs, the Foundation works to make scholarship accessible; to promote understanding and discussion of enduring and contemporary issues; and to broaden the range of educational opportunities available to all Virginians.