For the past two years, I’ve had the good fortune of being a Program Coordinator for a program through the National Endowment for the Arts called The Big Read. This is a grant-funded program where chosen communities present a program to their public based on one great book. The first year we chose Edith Wharton’s beautiful and moving “The Age of Innocence,” and the second year we chose “Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.”
Before I go on, a little about The NEA: (from their website): “The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education.”
The Big Read “is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.”
We are applying for our third consecutive grant, and this year we have chosen Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” a classic crime novel if there ever were one. I’m nearly finished reading it, and the dialogue is pitch perfect for the late 1920’s. The character of Sam Spade is a sarcastic, witty, mouthy tough-guy, and I love him for all his overt masculinity. His voice is a big change from the female narrators that dominate the books I read.
When a community is awarded a grant, they create and coordinate a program with events and activities centering on the book, as well as distribute free copies of the book. During our Poe program last October, our relatively small community distributed over 2,000 free books! That is an astonishing amount of reading going on!
This is why I love this program, and I proudly serve as the Program Coordinator in my community – I don’t do it for the money, but because I believe in the message it sends. Reading is incredibly, monumentally important. It is the crux of free thinking and education, and hell - our future.
Some of my favorite events for our Poe program were our Kick-Off event at a local cemetery chapel, a Mourning Tea, Masquerade Ball, and a POEtry Reading at the college where I teach English. We will hear back about our new application for “The Maltese Falcon” in April. If we are awarded a grant, we’ll start on the program in late July.
I’m sharing some of my pictures from the Tea and the Ball. Enjoy!
My husband and I at the Masquerade Ball. Fancy, huh? :D
The Raven (or a fake Styrofoam bird, whatever.)
My boss’s lovely wife, who I must say had the best costume at the ball.
At the Mourning Tea. I LOVE the candle drippings. So very Poe.
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