2018 Community Read
The 2018 Centre County Reads/CALS Community Read brought State College native Sunil Yapa home to celebrate his novel Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist. This year's Centre County Reads meaningfully engaged with the novel's themes of activism, protest, and community. The events included a writing contest and a round-table event sponsored by CALS as well as an author event with Yapa himself. Details for events are posted below.
Read 2017-2018 CALS undergraduate intern Phil Chwistek's review of Yapa's novel in the Centre Daily Times here, or listen to him read it on WPSU. |
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January
Beginning of "The Art of Protest" Writing and Art Contests How does one capture the sometimes fast-paced, sometimes patient events of protests? Can one enact protest through writing or art? Submit your best writing or art representing or enacting protest to the following categories: Writing contest: $200 Grand Prize, additional prizes in each category (Short Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Writer under 18). Art contest: $150 Best in Show with two $50 Awards of Merit. Selected pieces were displayed in the Betsy Rodgers Allen Gallery during the month of March. Congratulations to the winners! Read the winning entries to the writing contest here. |
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February
Kickoff Event February 10th, 2018 | 12 p.m.-3 p.m. Centre County Reads participated in hands-on community activism as area knitting clubs hosted a knit-a-thon. Knitters of all ages and experience levels worked on projects to donate to Housing Transitions, Inc. |
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March
Two Special Events with Author Sunil Yapa Sunil Yapa is a State College native who received his BA from Penn State and his MFA in Fiction from Hunter College in New York City in 2010, where he was a Hertog Fellow for Zadie Smith. The biracial son of a Sri Lankan father and a mother from Montana, Yapa has lived around the world, including, Greece, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, China, and India, as well as, London, Montreal, and New York City. He currently lives in Central Pennsylvania, and teaches in low-residency MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College.
A Discussion with Sunil Yapa On Wednesday, March 21st from 7-8:30 PM, Sunil Yapa visited the Freeman Auditorium in the HUB to be interviewed by WPSU and then invited questions from the audience about the novel.
A Reading by Sunil Yapa As part of the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series, Yapa read from his published writing and work-in-progress at the Nittany Lion Inn. |
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