Patricia
McCormick headlines our reading at The Arts Exchange (31 Mamaroneck Avenue
in White Plains) on March 14 as part of Westchester’s 2010
Big Read.* Her latest book, Purple Heart, is a psychological thriller
about a teenage American soldier who believes he may have been responsible for
the death of a 10-year old Iraqi boy. It was named one of Publishers Weekly’s
Best 25 Books of 2009.
Ms. McCormick was a 2006 finalist for the National Book Award for her previous novel, Sold, a deeply moving account of sexual trafficking which was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best 100 Books of the Year and selected by the American Library Association as one of the Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults in 2006. She is also the author of two other critically acclaimed novels for young adults — My Brother’s Keeper, a realistic view of teenage substance abuse and Cut, an intimate portrait of one teenager’s struggle with self injury. She is currently working on Song of the Killing Fields, the true story of Arn Chorn Pond, who survived the Khmer Rouge as child by playing the flute in a death camp and who later returned to Cambodia to revitalize the traditional music that they nearly destroyed. www.pattymccormick.com
*This reading is a
Big Read event. The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the
Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts
Midwest. Its idea is simple: encourage as many people as possible to read—and
discuss—the same book during a concentrated period. During February and March
of 2010, ArtsWestchester
and Westchester
Library System, in partnership with dozens of cultural organizations, civic
groups, schools and colleges, are making available dozens of programs and activities
related to this year’s selected book—Tim O’Brien’s fictionalized Vietnam memoir
The Things They Carried.
Admission
Free
Programs and events of The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center are made possible, in part, by grants from the Bydale Foundation, the David G. Taft Foundation, the Orchard Foundation, the William Robinson Foundation, and the Thendara Foundation; with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and by the Basic Program Support Grant of Arts Westchester with funds from Westchester County Government.