The Big Read: Fahrenheit 451

My well-loved personal copy, most likely
lifted from Amity Junior High School in 1987.

As part of the National Endowment for the Arts' The Big Read program, San Diego's Write Out Loud is sponsoring a pretty awesome Ray Bradbury-inspired creative art project contest that you might want to check out. (Especially if you or someone you know is a 12-24-year old Bradbury fan.) Here's the deal: read Bradbury's classic, Fahrenheit 451 and create an art project that re-imagines the book in some original way. Entrants aged 12 to 24 are eligible for prizes, everyone else, just the glory. The contest is "designed to encourage kids to read Bradbury’s prophetic novel by providing opportunities for them to re-imagine the images and themes from the story into a medium that is important to them – theatre, dance, visual arts, music, media arts, etc." 
Here's the rundown of the submission categories from WOL:

-Visual Art: illustrations, book covers/jackets, graphic novels, fashion/costume designs, set designs, sculpture, mixed media, photography, tattoos, surf/skate board designs, cartoons, etc.
-Literary Art: stories, poetry, monologues, dialogues, biography, etc.
-Performance Art: music composition, dance, oral interpretation, opera, film, animation.

The submission deadline is February 15, 2013 - more info can be found on the flyer from WOL below.

Even more exciting, Write Out Loud is planning out a series of (hopefully) three South Park Community Reads of Fahrenheit 451 - public, open readings of the book, right here in my 'hood. The first section, The Hearth and the Salamander, is scheduled for April 4th at Progress at 2225 30th Street, San Diego. As more info comes to light about times and other events, I'll post it here. If all goes well, parts two and three will be at The Grove and Rebecca's Coffee House, South Park. 

More information on the creative project can be found in several places: writeoutloudsd.com, by contacting them directly at (619) 297-8953, emailing writeoutloudsd@gmail.com, or by clicking on the flyer from WOL below. Info on all of the community reads and everything else Write Out Loud is up to (a staggering amount of 451-related events), can be found at the NEA website.