Ivy Tech Community College–Northeast announces a community reading initiative called Now Read This! and invites everyone in northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio to participate in reading and actively participating in several activities connected to a chosen literary work.

The inaugural program to be conducted over the next several months will be focused around the book Keesha’s House by Helen Frost. The goal of Now Read This! is to promote literacy and dialogue about the literary work and to enjoy reading the same book as a community.

A series of community reading groups will meet at Ivy Tech–Northeast from January through March to discuss the book. This community reading event will culminate in a book signing and reading by the author at the college on Thursday, March 31, 2011, to kick off National Poetry Month in April in conjunction with the college’s fifth annual Edible Book Festival.

Additionally, three separate scholarships of $1,000 each will be granted by Ivy Tech Community College–Northeast to three winners who submit the best creative responses to the book. For more information, visit www.ivytech.edu/fortwayne/readthis.

Reading group meetings will take place in the Student Life Center’s Conference on the college’s North Campus (4900 St. Joe Rd.) on the following days and times:

•  Tuesday, January 25, 2011, from 6 to 8 p.m.
• Wednesday, February 23, 2011, from 6 to 8 p.m.
• Thursday, March 17, 2011, from 6 to 8 p.m.

The meetings will be an open forum for the public to discuss different aspects of the book like character, plot, setting, themes, poetic forms, the structure of the book as poems, literary realism, Adult/Young Adult Literature, and any other aspects of the book that may arise. Each meeting will be moderated by an Ivy Tech faculty member.

Keesha’s House is available in paperback at Ivy Tech’s New Edition Bookstore in the basement of Harshman Hall on Ivy Tech’s North Campus (4900 St. Joe Rd.). Visit Helen Frost’s Website for more information about Keesha’s House at www.helenfrost.net.

For more information about Now Read This!, contact Troy Bigelow, English faculty member, at 260-481-2203 or tbigelow@ivytech.edu.