While we’re flattered you’ve taken the time to read our publication, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Just Buffalo Literary Center would like you to do a little more. In 2005, Buffalo was one of just ten cities from across the country chosen to participate in a program entitled “The Big Read” in which more than 100 communities nationwide will participate in 2007, reading and discussing chosen works. The program was designed to address the concerns raised by a report from the NEA in 2004, which found that literary reading in America was declining rapidly among all groups, but is especially accelerating among the young.
This year’s featured work is the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neal Hurston. “We felt it was a great piece of literature,” says Michael Kelleher, Artistic Director for the Just Buffalo Literary Center. “It’s a book that will reach across many of the racial divides that still exist in Buffalo and help to create conversations in many communities.”
By providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their community, the program seeks to restore reading for pleasure and enlightenment to the center of American culture. It includes comprehensive resources for discussing literature, a major national publicity campaign, an extensive website providing information on authors and their works, and—of great importance to Buffalo—innovative reading programs in selected cities like ours.
Michael further states that portions of the grant money received from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo and the Kellogg Foundation are being used to distribute 3000 free copies of the book to Buffalo area students, as well as creating a bus shelter marketing campaign for the month of May. In addition, the group is providing a 60% discount on copies of the book for the Labor Reads portion of the festivities.
The Big Read events stretch over an entire month, and feature major proceedings with local luminaries and departure programs derived from the book. Buffalo is no exception, with a month chock full of events of all kinds, and a kick-off press conference at City Hall on May 1st at 10 AM to which many local officials are invited, including Mayor Byron Brown and Buffalo School Superintendent James E. Williams, Ed.D. Other highlight events include “Tell My Horse: Zora Neal Hurston at the Albright-Knox”, featuring children’s storytelling sessions, a book discussion with Southern Teacakes (after the name of one of the main characters in the book) offered by Buffalo Public School Students at the Emerson Cooking School, a performance of “A Symphony Down in My Soul” (classic and modern African-American poems set to gospel, Jazz, and blues), and a presentation of the film White Zombie, by the cast of Off-Beat Cinema. (In addition to her classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston also wrote a famous study of Caribbean voodoo called Tell My Horse. The cast of Channel 7’s Off Beat Cinema will do a live taping of the show on site and present a classic B-Horror Film about voodoo and zombies.)
Throughout the course of the month there will also be Read-a-thons and dramatic performances, panel discussions and television presentations, and a few noted events, including a “Leaders Read” moderated civic discussion at WNED Studios on May 14th. Another very special event is a panel discussion at Hallwalls with the author’s niece, Lucy Anne Hurston, Alexis DeVeaux (who recently completed a biography of the late poet Audre Lorde), and a discussion by Lorna Hill, Founder and Executive Director of the Ujima Company, Inc., the oldest professional repertory theatre company in Western New York. The panel will discuss telling the stories of African American women’s lives. In other words, there are ways to get everyone involved in reading and discussing the book, no matter what setting they prefer. For more information and a full schedule of events, visit justbuffalo.org.
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Support for Buffalo Rising comes from: