It was a great day We'll give you our own recap of the Mockingbird Festival soon, but in the meantime, you can read the Blog Report of David Kipen, the Literary Director of the National Endowment for the Arts and Project Director of The Big Read regarding his thoughts about the WUMB Mockingbird Festival.

Erik Balkey wins the Mockingbird Songwriting Contest. The five Songwriting finalists came from as far away as Nashville, TN. and each wrote songs inspired by To Kill A Mockingbird. You can hear the song of the top prize winner Erik Balkey (Philadelphia, PA), with his song "Atticus Taught Me" here. Second place winner was Mark Stepakoff (Wellesley, MA) with "String Him Up." Third Place winner was Terry Kitchen (Roslindale, MA) with "Rainbow." The audience "Crowd Pleaser Award" went to Don Campell (Portland, ME & Nashville, TN) for "That Simple Place." All five finalists, including Tracy O'Connell (Natick, MA) with "Boo's Song" will be included on an upcoming CD of "Songs Inspired by To Kill A Mockingbird" which will also feature orignal songs by: Kate Campbell, Vance Gilbert, Pete & Maura Kennedy, Erin McKeown, Chris Smither and Brooks Williams.

You can hear Erik Balkey's winning song here as he performed it on stage the night of the Finalist competition. You can also listen to Erik's original submission here with vocalist Cary Cooper.

Come to the Mockingbird Festival - it's a great day for the entire family -- and, it's FREE!* Mark the date now: Saturday, May 10 from 11 AM until 5 PM. We're holding the first-ever "Mockingbird Festival" to mark the conclusion of our wonderful Big Read of Eastern Massachusetts programming. And what a day it will be with family fun, music, storytelling, discussion group, an art exhibition, Dust Bowl ballads, children's activities, movie & popcorn, and so much more. To top it all off, there will be a special concert at 3 PM featuring the finalists of our "Mockingbird" songwriting concert and Kate Campbell who has written some powerful music about some of the themes from "To Kill a Mockingbird." The festival is FREE and open to the public. The first 500 people to register and attend the Festival will receive a free CD of music inspired by the book featuring Kate Campbell, Vance Gilbert, Pete & Maura Kennedy, Brooks Williams and Erin McKeown. *There is a $5 admission charge for the Kate Campbell concert and songwriting finals at 3:00 PM. Parking at UMass Boston is $6.00. UMass Boston is accessible by public transporation; directions to the UMass Boston campus are available here.

To get your wrist-band for all events, check-in at the registration table on the second floor lobby of the McCormack Building from 10:30am-2:30pm. All of the events from 11am-3pm will be held in the Ryan Lounge area on the 3rd Floor of the McCormack Building. After 2:30pm, registration moves to the Snowden Auditorium Lobby on the first floor of the Wheatley Building. The Songwriting Contest will be held in the Snowden Auditorium on the 1st Floor of the Wheatley Building. The day's events include:

• 11:00am-3:00pm: Children's activities; Art Contest display from the Silver Lake Gallery, Newton; showing of the movie To Kill A Mockingbird; Birds, birds, birds with a naturalist from the Audubon Society
• 11:00am: Storyteller Janice Allen
• 11:45am: Students from the Greater Egleston High School (Roxbury) present a "Live Museum"
• Noon: Discussion of racism and other issues raised in To Kill A Mockingbird with Christian Cho of Community Change Inc
• 12:15pm: Singer-Songwriters Sean Staples & Eric Royer (Sorry - Alastair Moock is ill and is unable to attend) singing Dust Bowl and Woody Guthrie-inspired songs
• 1:00pm: Storyteller Tony Toledo
• 1:00pm: Discussion of To Kill A Mockingbird with Paula Williams, Great Books Council of New England
• 1:45pm: Remarks from WUMB General Manager Patricia Monteith
• 1:50pm: Keynote address by David Kipen, Literary Director of the National Endowment for the Arts
• 2:00pm: The LoveTones, sprituals from the 1930's
• 3:00pm: Address by Barbara Lewis, Director UMass Boston Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture
• 3:15pm: Finalists from the "Songs Inspired by To Kill A Mockingbird Songwriting Contest (see details below)
• 4:00pm: Kate Campbell, live in concert

Mockingbird Songwriting Finalists selected. Our panel of judges have selected five outstanding songwriters as finalists to perform on May 10 from 3 to 5 PM during the Mockingbird Festival. The five finalists are:

• Don Campell of Portland, Maine & Nashville, TN for "That Simple Place"
• Tracy O'Connell of Natick, Massachusetts for "Boo's Song"
• Erik Balkey of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for "Atticus Taught me"
• Terry Kitchen of Roslindale, Massachusetts for "Rainbow"
• Mark Stepakoff of Wellesley, Massachusetts for "String Him Up"

Our panel of judges includes David Kipen, Director of Literature at the National Endowment for the Arts and The Big Read project as well as the incomparable Kate Campbell

Have you attended a Big Read Event?. If you've attended a Big Read: Eastern Massachusetts event, we'd like to know your thoughts about it. Please take a a few minutes to complete a brief survey here about your experience.

The Big Read: Eastern Massachusetts Photo Gallery. You can experience some of the events and activities from our Big Read project by visiting our photo gallery here.

Help needed planning the Mockingbird Festival. On Saturday May 10th, a "Mockingbird Festival" will be held on the UMass Boston Campus to celebrate the successful conclusion of our Big Read program. This event will involve everything "Mockingbird" we can think of from music, to panel discussions and dramatic skits, to art & essay contests, the songwriting finals, and maybe even to a workshop on building birdhouses, to... you name it. We'll need lots of volunteers to help make this event a success. Let us know if you are interested in helping to organize the Festival at bigread@wumb.org.

Students - submit a report of the book! The Massachusetts Center for the Book is now accepting 250 word book reviews/reports from school students. They'll select 10 winners to read the book report at the Mockingbird Festival on May 10th, and some will be selected to be read on WUMB Radio. Click here to submit your review. If you have questions, contact the MA Center for the Book at: massbook@simmons.edu.

Hundreds of events are scheduled to take place about Harper Lee's book To Kill A Mockingbird in the greater Boston area through June, 2008. To view all of the events we've arranged in Boston and the surrounding areas, visit our Calendar of Events listing on the NEA Web site here. You can figure out which of about 100 great events you'd like to attend!

Video of Barbara Lewis speech now available!At the Kickoff Celebration, the Director of UMass Boston's Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture delivered the Keynote Speech entitled, A Community That Reads Together Learns Together. You can watch a video of Lewis delivering her speech here. The Word document of her speech can be found below in the section recapping the Kick Off event.

Our deepest thanks to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities for providing us with a grant to purchase hundreds of books for Boston area social service organizations and schools, so that their constituents and students are also able to participate in the Big Read project.

Sorry - Songwriting Contest Deadline has passed. If you're a songwriter, you could have been interested in submitting an entry to the "Songs Inspired by the Book - To Kill A Mockingbird Contest." Complete rules and an application form can be found here. The contest deadline is March 24, 2008. The winner's songs may be included on a forthcoming CD of music inspired by the book with performers including Kate Campbell, Vance Gilbert, Pete & Maura Kennedy, Erin McKeown and others.

WUMB's "To Kill A Mockingbird" MySpace page has been launched. You can visit it here. If you have a MySpace account, don't forget to sign yourself up as a "Friend!"

The Kick Off event was an incredible night!The Official Kickoff Celebration of the Big Read: Eastern Massachusetts took place on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at the UMass Boston Campus Healey Library. Dozens of the project's partners and collaborators attended to feast on Redbones' Southern BBQ cuisine and to receive copies of NEA produced reader's and teacher's guides, bookmarks and publicity materials to ensure that their Big Read programs are successful. Barbara Lewis, Director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston captivated the attention of everyone in the room with her speech entitled, A Community That Reads Together Learns Together. You can find a Word document of her speech here. Lewis recalled a small town in Alabama in the 1930's and posed questions like, "Why is this book such a perennial, routinely listed as the most popular novel of the twentieth century?" Another part of the evening's agenda was an excerpt from the reader's theatre script version of "To Kill a Mockingbird" performed by WUMB staff and listeners. Photos from the event will be available soon.

What is The Big Read? WUMB Radio is one of 127 organizations nationwide, recently awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to participate in that organization's annual initiative called The Big Read. It is the largest federal reading program in U.S. history. The Big Read answers a big need. Reading at Risk a 2004 NEA Report, found that book reading has reached an all time low among Americans of every age.

What will Boston and Eastern Massachusetts read? The grant provides funding for WUMB Radio, in partnership with several other organizations, to host a Big Read celebration of one of 16 classic novels from January-June 2008. After surveying the UMass Boston campus and WUMB's listeners, we have chosen To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The book tells two paired stories set in a small Southern town: one focused on a lawyer's defense of an unjustly accused man, the other on his bright but bratty daughter's gradual discovery of her own goodness. It has two broad themes: tolerance and justice. The book was adapted into a movie with Gregory Peck in 1962.

Who are the Eastern Massachusetts Partners? Primary partners include:the Healey Library at UMass Boston, the Newburyport Literary Festival, the Richards Memorial Library in North Attleboro and the Silver Lake Gallery in Newton. We expect dozens of other local organizations to also join in this initiative.

How you can participate - if you are part of a local organization. Organizations selected to participate in The Big Read: Eastern Massachusetts receive reader's guides, teacher's guides and audio for the novel, an online organizer's guide for running a successful Big Read program, and access to a comprehensive Big Read Web site. Each local initiative is expected to include events, such as read-a-thons, book discussions, film screenings, library & museum exhibits, and other interesting activities aimed at avid and lapsed or reluctant readers alike. More details here soon. Support may available to a number of greater Boston organizations to help organize associated events. This support may be in the form of copies of the book, a facilitator to lead book discussions or a small grant to produce activities. If you are interested in participating, please complete and return this application. While the original deadline for submission was December 12, 2007, we're still accepting applications. All events will be publicized on WUMB Radio and through a special Web site to promote this project.

How you can participate - if you are an individual. Plan to read the book (photo right: NEA Chairman Dana Gioia is reading the book)! Copies of the book along with Reader's Guides & Audio Guides produced by the NEA will be available at participating libraries and community organizations across Eastern Massachusetts. A list will be available after the first of the year.

Events. WUMB Radio is planning several special initiatives throughout the six months to include a radio program, a contest of songs inspired by the book, a Mockingbird MySpace page, book giveaways and more. Other events will be coordinated by WUMB's various partners. All events will be listed on the Web page in a special calendar. The list of Big Read: Eastern Massachusetts events and activities will be available on this Web page and as part of a daily calendar heard on one of WUMB's many radio transmitters throughout Eastern Massachusetts.

Songwriting Contest. If you're a songwriter, you might be interested in submitting an entry to the "Songs Inspired by the Book - To Kill A Mockingbird Contest." Complete rules and an application form can be found here. The contest deadline is March 24, 2008.

Kick-Off Event and a Mockingbird Festival. A big kick-off event is scheduled for Wednesday, January 30 at 6:30pm on the 11th Floor of Healey Library at UMass Boston. On Saturday May 10th, a "Mockingbird Festival" will be held on the UMass Boston Campus to celebrate the successful conclusion of the program. This event will likely involve everything "Mockingbird" we can think of from music, to panel discussions and dramatic skits, to art & essay contests, the songwriting finals, and maybe even to a workshop on building birdhouses, to... you name it. We'll need lots of volunteers to help make this event a success. Let us know if you are interested in helping to organize the Festival at bigread@wumb.org.

Schools and Libraries. We particularly would like to see schools and libraries to get involved. Boston-area libraries will be able to receive a few copies of the book as well as copies of the Reader's Guides to distribute, and Audio Guides to lend. An online teacher's guide is available here:

• Introduction
• Schedule/Lesson Plans
• Capstone Project Ideas
• Essay Topics
• Additional Resources
• NCTE Standards
• Credits

More info WUMB Radio and the University of Massachusetts Boston are delighted to have the opportunity to take the lead role in organizing this exciting initiative. If you have any questions or would like to volunteer to help out, e-mail us at bigread@wumb.org.

David Kipen (left), Director of Literature for the National Endowment for the Arts with WUMB General Manager Pat Monteith and Mac McLanahan, WUMB's Project Coordinator for The Big Read - Boston. Pat and Mac were in Minneapolis recently for a training session on how to coordinate The Big Read program in Boston.

WUMB-FM at the University of Massachusetts is Boston's National Public Radio (NPR) music station and has been on the air since 1982. Broadcasting over a network of five radio stations in Eastern Massachusetts with a reach of 1.6 million people, the station maintains a worldwide presence via the internet. WUMB is dedicated to produce, acquire and disseminate high quality, diverse and valued public service programming to audiences interested in expanding their horizons and perspectives, and who enjoy the arts and cultural experiences. The radio station serves as a local and national resource for cultivation, promotion and preservation of various genres of folk music.

The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts - both new and established - bringing the arts to all Americans, and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Arts Endowment is the nation's largest annual funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases. For more information, please visit www.arts.gov.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development. For more information, please visit www.imls.gov.

Arts Midwest connects people throughout the Midwest and the world to meaningful arts opportunities, sharing creativity, knowledge, and understanding across boundaries. Arts Midwest connects the arts to audiences throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. One of six non-profit regional arts organizations in the United States, Arts Midwest's history spans more than 25 years. For more information, please visit www.artsmidwest.org.