Billings Events
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NEA Awards Major Literary Grant to the YMCAFor Immediate Release: June 25, 2009
Contact: Corby Skinner, 406-248-1685 ext 231 corbyskinner@yahoo.com
THE YMCA WRITER’S VOICE ANNOUNCES A $13,500 GRANT FROM THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS
[BILLINGS, MONTANA, JUNE 25th]— The Writer’s Voice of the Billings Family YMCA is pleased to announce that the organization has once again been selected as a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant for The Big Read.
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.
The YMCA Writer’s Voice and its community partner the Parmly Billings Library will kick-off The Big Read on September 25 at MSU-Billings as a part of the American Indian Heritage Day Celebration. The Big Read will continue programs and workshops at school, libraries, museums and other public venues in South-Central Montana throughout the month. The 2009 High Plains BookFest, scheduled for October 2-4, 2009, will also focus on Native and non-native contemporary regional writers, whose works address the culture, history and lives of the Northern Plains Indians.
“Because our Big Read selection is the novel, Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich we are focusing the 7th annual BookFest on Native American literature, culture, and art —all of which is a vibrantly part of our community’s heritage and history,” said Corby Skinner, Director of YMCA Writer’s Voice.
The BookFest and The Big Read are designed to engage new audiences, and foster conversations about how literature addresses the challenges, rewards and many unique aspects of Native American life.
Billings is one of over 260 communities nationwide participating in this round of Big Reads. During the fall of 2009 Billings will be invaded by various literary-geared activities and fun! Among those activities are readings, lectures, book discussion groups, writing workshops and even a film festival!
The mini-film festival will show Native American films, such as Pow-wow Highway, Smoke Signals, Skins and other films by Native American film makers. The films will be shown at the Parmly Billings Library and many will also be available to check out.
Bill Cochran, Parmly Billings Library Director, had this to say, “We are happy to be partnering again with The Writer's Voice in The Big Read and are honored to once again be a recipient of this grant. Part of our mission is to ignite a passion for reading, lifelong learning, intellectual pursuits, and community involvement, and The Big Read qualifies on all counts. We encourage as many people in our community as possible to read Love Medicine and join in the discussion."
In her powerful first novel, Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich introduces several generations in the interrelated families living in and around a Chippewa or Ojibwa reservation near the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota. The lives of these characters will unfold further in The Beet Queen, Tracks, and The Bingo Palace.
Spanning fifty years, from 1934 through 1984, the novel is told through the voices of a series of vivid characters, mostly Chippewa men and women who are caught up in the emotional tangle of their families’ histories, but who struggle to gain some control over their lives. Sometimes compared to Faulkner’s multi-narrated family sagas, Love Medicine creates an intense vision of a world that is at once violent and tender, ugly and lyrical, realistic and gothic. At their best, the separate stories that make up the novel convey the subtle pressures upon the souls of people who are culturally mixed—of those whose lives are shaped by both Native American and non-Indian values, habits, and customs.
YMCA Writer's Voice 402 North 32nd 59101 248-1685 ext 231 www.billingsymca.org The Writer's Voice is a literary program of the Billings YMCA. Related:
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