Centre County Reads has featured a wide range of acclaimed works by authors from around the world since its inception in 2003. This year’s selection for the 15th annual one book, one community read will come from a writer with local roots.
Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, the debut novel by State College Area High School and Penn State alumnus Sunil Yapa, is the pick for Centre County Reads 2018.
Yapa’s novel, published in 2016, tells the story of the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization protests through the perspectives of seven characters.
A 1998 graduate of State High and 2002 Penn State graduate with a degree in economic geography, Yapa will return to the Centre Region to discuss his book at 7 p.m. on March 21 in the HUB-Robeson Center’s Freeman Auditorium. A book signing will follow.
Other Centre County Reads events and contests will be held prior to Yapa’s appearance.
A kickoff event will take place from noon to 3 p.m. on Feb. 10 at the Centre County Library and Historical Museum in Bellefonte. Local clubs will hold a knit-a-thon for knitters of all experience levels to make scarves and other items for Housing Transitions.
‘What Is Activist Literature,’ a roundtable discussion, will be held from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 27 in Paterno Library’s main assembly room.
Book discussion groups are scheduled in February and March for various locations around the county. See the full list here.
Penn State’s Center for American Literary Studies and the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts are also sponsoring The Art of Protest writing and art contests, with entries ‘representing or enacting protest.’ The writing contest will accept submissions until Feb. 28 for consideration in categories of best fiction, best nonfiction, best poetry and best entry for a writer under 18. A $200 grand prize will be awarded.
The art contest includes a $150 grand prize. Selected entries will be exhibited throughout March at the Betsy Allen Rodgers Gallery in Schlow Centre Region Library. The application deadline is Jan. 26.
For rules and entry information, visit the Centre County Reads website.
Centre County Reads annually encourages county residents of all ages ‘to explore the human condition and the issues of community by reading the same book and discussing it together.’
The project is coordinated by the Center for American Literary Studies, Centre County Library, Pennsylvania Center for the Book, Schlow Centre Region Library, and State College, Bellefonte, Penns Valley and Philipsburg-Osceola school districts. Barnes & Noble, Schlow Library Foundation and Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts are partners for Centre County Reads 2018.
