The Big Read

Writers & Books (W&B), Rochester’s community literary center, is delighted to announce its participation in The Big Read program to be presented throughout Rochester and Monroe County.

“The Big Read” is a national initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to help reestablish reading as the core of American culture.  Rochester’s Big Read book will be Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 classic The Maltese Falcon.

W&B will sponsor readings, lectures, book discussions, classes, writing and filmmaking contests, films, panel discussions, and special events across the region throughout October and November.

We are tremendously excited about by this opportunity. This program encourages people who have not read a good book lately to join with thousands of fellow Rochesterians to read a classic American novel which Writers & Books considerrs to be a wonderful goal.

To that end we are going to present a fun, exciting series of events. Current plans call for:

• student mystery writing contest
• expert lectures about Dashiell Hammett and film noir
• video series at W&B
• classes on detective fiction, mystery writing, Hammett, film noir, and more at Writers & Books and local colleges
• moderated book discussions at libraries, bookstores and community and senior centers
• film showings at the Dryden and Little theatres
• dramatic reading of The Maltese Falcon
• old-style radio show presentation
• falcon and bird-of-prey event for families
• readers’ trivia contest
• closing Gala party with Sense of Place Award presented to Dashiell Hammett’s daughter and grand-daughter
• raffle for a Maltese Falcon-themed trip for two to San Francisco.

For more information on these and other great Big Read events, check out our events calendar.

Copies of The Maltese Falcon are available for sale at all Big Read events, as well as at Writers & Books, Greenwood Books on East Ave., The Good Bookstore on East Ave., Barnes & Noble stores and Borders Books & Music stores. Writers & Books offers a discount to members (just ask at the bookstore) and bulk discounts to schools and book groups; please email karen@wab.org for more information about bulk sales.

A Reader’s Guide to The Maltese Falcon
is available for download on The Big Read web site: www.neabigread.org.
Limited print copies of the Reader’s Guide are also available at Writers & Books
as well as local libraries and bookstores.
Teacher’s Guides for The Maltese Falcon
are also available at Writers & Books or by request by emailing karen@wab.org. A Teacher’s Guide to The Maltese Falcon is also available for download at www.neabigread.org and in print at Writers & Books.

Bruce Hale, author The Malted Falcon, to Visit Rochester!
Hale, author The Malted Falcon, part of the Chet Gecko series of mysteries for 4th and 5th graders, will be in Rochester for school visits on Tuesday, Nov. 27. For information on having Mr. Hale visit your school, please contact Karen vanMeenen at Karen@wab.org.

Win a Maltese Falcon trip to San Francisco!
The lucky winner of The Maltese Falcon raffle will receive a 5-day/4-night trip for two
to San Francisco including
- round-trip flights
- four nights in the Dashiell Hammett Suite at the Union Square Hotel
- private Maltese Falcon tour of many of the sites that appear in the novel
- spending allowance
- boat tour of Alcatraz
Tickets are $25 each or 5 for $100 and are available at Writers & Books through Nov. 30 at 12noon and
at the Gala Closing that evening, where the winning ticket will be drawn.
Approximate retail value: $3,000.
Click here for an entry form

The Sam Spade Readers’ Trivia Contest
Read the Book—Win a Prize!
Read The Maltese Falcon and log onto our on-line trivia contest. Each week Writers & Books will pose challenging new questions. Answer all twenty-four questions correctly and you are guaranteed to win a prize! Top prizes include free tickets to local events and entry into the Grand Prize Drawing of a trip for two to San Francisco! The contest is open through Nov. 30.
It’s fun. It’s easy and it’s mysterious!

Teen Mystery Writing Contest
The contest will be judged by Robbi Hess, Fiction Editor of ByLine, a magazine for both experienced and novice writers, published monthly since 1981. (More information can be found at www.bylinemag.com.) One winner will receive a free writing course of their choice at Writers & Books (up to a $120 value), three tickets to the Closing Gala on Nov. 30 (where the award will be presented) and their winning submission will be printed in an upcoming issue of ByLine.
All entrants receive a copy of The Maltese Falcon. Open to short fiction, plays and screenplays.
Send one submission per author of maximum 2,500 words for short stories and maximum 10 pages (double-spaced) for plays and screenplays to Karen vanMeenen,
Writers & Books, 740 University Ave., Rochester, NY 14607. Deadline: Friday, Nov. 9 at 5pm. Please include an email address and an SASE if you would like your manuscript returned.
Winners will be notified by email by Friday, Nov. 23.

The Big Read Closing Party: Costume Gala, Silent Auction and Sense of Place Award.
Join us for a Gala Closing party to celebrate Rochester’s first Big Read!
Special guests include Josephine Hammett and Julie M. Rivett, daughter and granddaughter of Dashiell Hammett, who will be in attendance to accept Writers & Books’ annual “Sense of Place” Literary Award, which will be given posthumously to Dashiell Hammett.
The event will take place on Friday, Nov. 30 at 7pm at the Memorial Art Gallery.
Tickets: $50/$45 W&B members. For more information or to purchase tickets call (585) 473-2590, x107.

Chocolate Maltese Falcons
Specially made for our program, these dark chocolate falcons are available for 50¢ each at Writers & Books and at selected Big Read events.

The Maltese Falcon coffee drink
at the Little Theatre Caféwill be offered at half-price for the month of November in honor of The Big Read.

 

 

Resources

Julie Rivett gave a speech titled, "Nesting Fiction in Fact: The Maltese Falcon in San Francisco," when she accepted Writers & Book's Sense of Place award for her grandfather Dashiell Hammett and his novel The Maltese Falcon.

Click here to read a copy in. doc format

Academy Award Theatre: The Maltese Falcon Radio Play
Listen to it free
(1946, CBS)
30 minutes
Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett
Starring Humphrey Bogart as SAM SPADE
with Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet

These events are part of The Big Read,
an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts
in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest.

For more information about The Maltese Falcon visit http://www.neabigread.org/books/maltesefalcon/