Title: The Big Read Teleconference – author Ernest J. Gaines
Location: Administration and Conference Center UVI – St. Thomas
Link out: Click here
Description: On Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 6PM UVI – ITS & Reichhold Center for the Arts in conjunction with the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts recipient of the 2010 The Big Read grant will host a conversation with Ernest J. Gaines, author of the territories 2010 Big Read selection A Lesson before Dying. Ernest J. Gaines was born on January 15, 1933 on the River Lake Plantation in Oscar, a hamlet in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, which is the Bayonne of all his fictional work.

Mr. Gaines will be live via video conference from the Pointe Coupee Parish Library in New Roads, Louisiana March 24, 2010 at 6:00PM and in the Administration and Conference Center UVI – St. Thomas campus; the St. Croix UVI location will be announced soon. Gaines will talk to our local audience, provide readings from his writing, as well as provide discussion and answers. Gaines will also announce the winners of UVI and the Department of Education’s A Lesson before Dying essay contest.

In 2008 The National Endowment for the Arts named A Lesson Before Dying as part of its Big Read National Reading Program. His novel, A Lesson Before Dying, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1993, has sold two million copies. It is the story of a young black man wrongly condemned to Louisiana’s electric chair by a white jury in 1948 and of the teacher who tries to help him meet his death–as a man and not as “a hog,” the characterization given him by his defense attorney’s summation to the jury.

Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, A Lesson before Dying won in 1994 the Best Fiction Award by the National Book Critics Circle, the Southern Writers Conference, and the Louisiana Library Association, and was the October 1997 choice of Oprah’s Book Club. HBO premiered the TV film in 1999, which subsequently received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Made-For-Television Movie and Outstanding Writing for a Mini-Series or Movie (South African writer Ann Peacock).

Arrangements for the appearance of Ernest J. Gaines were made through Tanya Bickley Enterprises, Inc., New Canaan, CT 06840, www.bickley.com . For more information contact UVI – Big Read coordinator Rachelle Shells @ 693-1367.

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RD Shells, Manager
Learning Resources & Student Technology Services
University of the Virgin Islands
#2 John Brewers Bay
St. Thomas, USVI 00802
340-693-1367
340-693-1365 fax

rshells@uvi.edu
shellsrd@gmail.com
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2010-03-24

The Friends of St. Thomas Public Libraries (FOSTPL) will host a general meeting in the Adult Reading Room of the Enid M. Baa Public Library on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 5:45pm.  Members and the general public are invited.

On the agenda will be a review of planned activities for 2010, which include participation in National Library Week, Summer Reading Program, National Library Card Sign-Up Month, and A Gathering of Friends (in support of local storytellers and authors).

Volunteers are needed for the Day Care Literacy Program, Hospital Book Cart and the Book Redistribution Program.  Membership applications will be available.

Title: Friends of Sprauve Library Speaker Series
Location: Elaine Ione Sprauve Library, St. John
Link out: Click here
Description: Friends of the Elaine I. Sprauve Library St. John US Virgin Islands present first
2010 Speaker Series Presentation Promoting the awareness and insight of authors and their books related to our culture, community and educational assets

Featuring Cristina Kessler – at the newly renovated and air conditioned library. Cristina Kessler is an award-winning children’s author, presenting “Behind the Books,” a virtual presentation taking you to six of the African countries where her books are set.  

Q & A and light refreshments follow. Signed books will be available, with a portion of the proceeds going to the library. Contact: stjohnlibraryfriends@gmail.com
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2010-02-12
End Time: 20:00