Mid-Columbia Libraries Announces the Kick-Off of the NEA Big Read in the Mid-Columbia

Mid-Columbia Libraries (MCL) celebrates its fall literary festival, NEA Big Read: Mid-Columbia, with a kick-off event and book giveaway Oct. 1 at 4 pm at Mid-Columbia Libraries’ Keewaydin Park Branch, located at 405 S. Dayton St. in Kennewick.

This year’s featured title is the dystopian novel “Station Eleven,” by international bestselling author Emily St. John Mandel. The book was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award and won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Toronto Book Award, and the Morning News Tournament of Books; it has been translated into 31 languages.
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The event is open to the public; light refreshments will be served. It marks the first of a variety of special programs culminating in A Conversation With Emily St. John Mandel on Nov. 8. For details and a complete event calendar, readers can visit midcolumbialibraries.org/nea-big-read-mid-columbia.

NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. NEA Big Read: Mid-Columbia is presented in partnership with Batelle, Leidos/Centerra, Abadan, Tri-CU, and Friends of Mid-Columbia Libraries. The Mid-Columbia region is one of 79 communities nationwide participating in the NEA Big Read from September 2018 through June 2019.