- Jan Cook
- Posted On
Lake County Library receives Big Read grant
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lake County Library is a recipient of a grant of $5,700 to host the NEA Big Read in Lake County.
A national initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book.
The Lake County Library is one of 79 nonprofit organizations across the country to receive an NEA Big Read grant to host a community reading program between September 2018 and June 2019.
The NEA Big Read in Lake County will focus on Into the Beautiful North by Luis Albert Urrea. Activities will take place in October 2018.
"I'm thrilled to receive the support of the National Endowment for the Arts again this year,” said Lake County Librarian Christopher Veach. “The NEA Big Read is a fun series of events, and it's also a wonderful way to celebrate the importance of reading and literacy in our community.”
Book lovers in Lake County selected “Into the Beautiful North” for the NEA Big Read in a survey.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support opportunities for communities across the nation, both small and large, to take part in the NEA Big Read,” said NEA Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter. “This program encourages people to not only discuss a book together, but be introduced to new perspectives, discuss the issues at the forefront of our own lives, and connect with one another at events.”
The NEA Big Read showcases a diverse range of contemporary titles that reflect many different voices and perspectives, aiming to inspire conversation and discovery.
The main feature of the initiative is a grants program, managed by Arts Midwest, which annually supports dynamic community reading programs, each designed around a single NEA Big Read selection.
In Lake County, some of the local partners are Clark McAbee of the Lake County Museums, the Lake County Arts Council, Edgar Ontiveros at La Voz de la Esperanza Centro Latino, Lisa Kaplan at the Middletown Art Center, Richard Schmidt at the Lake County Arts Council, Mendocino College Lake Center, Lake County Friends of Mendocino College, Jabez William Churchill, Woodland College’s Gina Jones, Bruno Sabatier, Rod Cabreros, Kandice Goodman and Ian Anderson, KPFZ 88.1, and local educators Kathy Perkins and Jo Fay of the Little Read.
Organizers expect to add more partners as planning continues between now and October.
Since 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded more than 1,400 NEA Big Read programs, providing more than $19 million to organizations nationwide. In addition, Big Read activities have reached every Congressional district in the country.
Over the past 11 years, grantees have leveraged more than $44 million in local funding to support their NEA Big Read programs. More than 4.9 million Americans have attended an NEA Big Read event, approximately 82,000 volunteers have participated at the local level, and 39,000 community organizations have partnered to make NEA Big Read activities possible. For more information about the NEA Big Read, please visit www.arts.gov/neabigread.
The Lake County Library is on the internet at http://library.lakecountyca.gov and Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LakeCountyLibrary.
Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities.
Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit arts.gov to learn more about NEA.
Arts Midwest promotes creativity, nurtures cultural leadership, and engages people in meaningful arts experiences, bringing vitality to Midwest communities and enriching people’s lives. Based in Minneapolis, Arts Midwest connects the arts to audiences throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. One of six non-profit regional arts organizations in the United States, Arts Midwest’s history spans more than 25 years. For more information, please visit www.artsmidwest.org .
Hailed by National Public Radio as a "literary badass" and "master storyteller with a rock and roll heart," Luis Alberto Urrea is the award-winning, bestselling author of numerous books of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction and a member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame.
Raised in Tijuana and San Diego by a Mexican father and American mother, Urrea inherited a rich legacy of cultural lore and a love of storytelling from his extended family on both sides of the border, though he claims he’s “more interested in bridges” than borders. In his third novel, “Into the Beautiful North,” an idealistic 19-year-old woman is inspired by the film “The Magnificent Seven” to travel from her home in Mexico to the United States to enlist seven men who’ve left her town to return and help protect it from drug-dealing bandidos.
Jan Cook is a technician with the Lake County Library.