Fiscal Year: 2024

The Becket and Washington, Massachusetts communities will read The Bear by Andrew Krivak and engage in enriching and creative activities and conversations around environmental awareness - specifically the appreciation, respect, and conservation of our beautiful and rural surroundings.

The United States Marshals Museum will present diverse public programming connected with the community-wide reading of Kao Kalia Yang's book, "The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir. Planned events will hosted by USMM and local partners such as the Fort Smith Public Library, Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, Bookish, and the University of Arkansas- Fort Smith.

Touchstone Theatre will highlight accessibility awareness through a series of programs focused around “Sitting Pretty” by Rebekah Taussig. All members of our community will be welcomed into programming, which will take place over seven months in partnership with the Bethlehem Area Public Library, as well as local artists and accessibility-centric organizations.

Museums and libraries celebrate the exchange of ideas and self-expression--Where We Live: In Curiosity, is a community collaboration by the Clark County Public Library and the Springfield Museum of Art, inspired by book artist Amanda Love's exhibition Tigris and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. This Big Read provides public exchange of ideas, creative outlets and lifelong learning opportunities.

The Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (PVMA) and Montague Public Libraries, with other libraries and organizations, will bring 61 Connecticut River Valley towns and cities together through creative programs to explore Ross Gay’s poetry collection “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” and the healing power of nature, community, and art in the face of loss and pain—November 2024 through June 2025.

The Willa Cather Foundation and library partners invite residents of Webster County, Nebraska, and of neighboring communities in Nebraska and Kansas to read and discuss Cather's MY ÁNTONIA. A shared reading experience and related programs will enable readers to reflect on the landscape and lived experience in the region, both historically and today.

ArtReach will work with semi-rural & exurban libraries and other multi-disciplinary partners to present NEA Big Read in the St. Croix Valley. A month of programs will evolve around Kevin Wilson's unpredictable novel "Nothing to See Here" where the children are literally fiery. It challenges us to reconsider neurodiversity, self-control and caregiving. "What happens when we walk into the fire?"

Inspired by Yang's The Latehomecomer to think about place both literally and metaphorically, we will provide a robust program including book discussions, writing prompts, public events, a writing retreat, and an open anthology call. The framework for thinking about place and identity holistically builds on Yang’s memoir’s structure, and the ways our place’s geology and topography affects ethology.

To present a youth production of the play The House on Mango Street adapted by Amy Ludwig, based on the book of the same name by Sandra Cisneros.

Amherst Glebe Arts Response, Inc. (AGAR) will conduct an NEA Big Read, "Exploring 'Homegoing' in Amherst County, Virginia." Community embers will read historical novel "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyazi, who has been invited to speak virtually Mary Helen Cochran Library. the Big Read theme is "Where We Live." Using literature, dance and history, we will explore the lives of Amherst African- Americans.