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Missouri Humanities Council e-News | April 2009 | View Online | ||||||||||
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Jane Smiley Helps ReadMOre Engage People Across the StateReadMOre, Missouri’s one-book-one-state reading celebration, is gaining traction. Jane Smiley’s compelling Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Thousand Acres, is the ReadMOre book for 2009. The effort to advance ReadMOre gained immensely from Jane Smiley's visits to Webster Groves, Columbia and St. Charles County. One could not turn on the radio or television, or read a newspaper without knowing that Jane Smiley was in town. Having grown up in St. Louis and traveled throughout the state in her youth, Jane was treated to numerous side trips to her favorite spots between media events and evening appearances at Webster University's Emerson Library, Columbia's Daniel Boone Regional Library, and the Kathryn Linnemann Library in St. Charles.
By every account, Smiley’s appearances were most successful! Drawing between 80-100 people at each location, Smiley read from A Thousand Acres and answered questions from her audiences. She then stayed to visit and sign copies of her novels. This great storyteller did not disappoint – as her wisdom, wit and whimsy captivated everyone.
The crowd above filled the room in the Emerson Library. Here are two on-site accounts about her appearances in Columbia and St. Charles: From Marilyn McLeod, Daniel Boone Regional Library, Columbia to the ReadMOre steering committee: (April 9) Thanks again for the opportunity to participate in this year’s ReadMOre events! We had a delightful evening with Jane Smiley last night. As you no doubt have discovered, she has an amazing breadth (and depth) of knowledge on a very wide range of subjects! We had about 85 people attend (about all that our room can hold comfortably). (The newspaper article says “70” people, but I’m quite certain there were more like 85!) Trudy Lewis, professor of English, who is on the faculty of the Creative Writing Program at MU gave a wonderful introduction. Everyone was very pleased with the program. Jane read a chapter from her book (selected quite at random – something we discovered from a question from the audience) and then proceeded to answer questions from the audience. Her honest, fascinating and often humorous answers kept the audience engaged for probably an hour (following the reading!) She then patiently signed books for perhaps 30 people. A few articles appeared in the local newspapers, both before and after the event. It was taped by our local cable channel for re-broadcast. Here are links to the newspaper articles: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/mar/29/one-read-invites-public-to-vote-author-jane/ And again, our thanks to the committee for setting all of this up! From Sara Nielsen, St. Charles Library: (April 10) Hi everyone, Just wanted to give you an update on how it all went yesterday: I picked Jane up at the hotel in Columbia at a little before noon and we drove back into St. Louis for her interview. I'm glad I built a cushion into our travel time as we were then able to take a slight detour to go past the area in St. Charles County where Jane used to ride horses when she was a teenager. We then went to her interview at KWMU, the local NPR station, which aired this morning at 11:00. She talked about the value of ReadMOre and made sure to mention all the libraries she visited and the Humanities Council as well! We were so pleased that we had 80 people attend the event - despite the fact that it was on a holiday and it was pouring rain! Jane read from her book and took a lot of questions from the audience. After the talk she signed many books and enjoyed refreshments with the attendees. I took her back to the hotel a little after 9:00 and she flew out of this rainy weather this morning. Jane said that she had a very good experience on the ReadMOre tour and that she would be more than happy to come back again! Thank you all for everything you've done to make this happen! It was a great experience for us. [Return to Passages Front Page] Also in This Issue:
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