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News Release

05/01/2007
Reading Across Rhode Island (RARI) Project to Culminate this Week with Author Visits and Events Around RI

The author of The Memory of Running, East Providence native, Ron McLarty, will be traveling all over the state on Thursday, May 4 and Friday, May 5 in support of the 2007 Reading Across Rhode Island project of the Rhode Island Center for the Book at Providence Public Library. This ‘one book, one state’ literacy project promotes reading as a positive community experience, inviting readers all over Rhode Island to join in reading the same book from January through May each year. Chaired by the Honorable Charles J. Fogarty, this is the fifth year for Reading Across Rhode Island.

Schedule of Events
Friday, May 4 – 9:30 – 10:30 am -- Woonsocket High School
Woonsocket High School will host McLarty at a live videoconference, sponsored by the RI Network for Educational Technology (RINET).

The author will speak to an audience of students, teachers and community members in Woonsocket and will simultaneously reach audiences gathered at high schools and libraries all over the state, through live videoconferencing. McLarty will be speaking to audiences in Chariho, Westerly, East Greenwich, East Providence, Narragansett and Smithfield High Schools. Students at these schools will be able to interact with the author and ask him a few questions during the one-hour conference.

Friday, May 4 – 12:15 – 1:30 pm -- Portsmouth High School
– 2:00 pm – East Providence High School

McLarty will also be visiting Portsmouth High School, meeting with the school’s entire senior class. All of the seniors in the class have read The Memory of Running and are eager to meet with the author.

From Portsmouth, the author will make his way back to his alma mater, East Providence High School, where a group of readers will be waiting to meet him in the school library.

Together, Ron McLarty will be speaking with a total of about 650 students at these eight locations on Friday, May 4.

Saturday, May 5 –
7:00 am -- WHJJ 920 AM’s Reading with Robin, East Providence
– 9:30 am -- Rhodes on-the-Pawtuxet, Cranston
After a 7 am appearance, in the station, on WHJJ 920 AM’s Reading with Robin radio talk show, Ron McLarty will be serenaded by the Ocean Bones Trombone Band at Rhodes on-the-Pawtuxet on Saturday, May 5 at Reading Across Rhode Island’s Annual May Breakfast. This sold-out event of over 550 Rhode Island readers is the finale for this “one book, one state” project, featuring McLarty as the keynote speaker.

Also, Bike RI, the three-month collaboration of local bike riders to ‘bike’ The Memory of Running from one book group to another throughout the state will end its travels at Rhodes that morning. Copies of the book, signed by readers from 20 book groups at libraries from Westerly to Woonsocket, will be biked into Rhodes that morning and presented to Ron McLarty!

Sunday, May 6 -- Barrington Books from 12 – 2 pm
Accommodating Rhode Island readers who might not have had a chance to join in these activities, McLarty will be signing copies of his two books, The Memory of Running and Traveler, on Sunday, May 6 at Barrington Books from 12 – 2 pm.

For more information about these events, to view photos of Bike RI, or to nominate a book for 2008, and for other information, go to www.readingacrossri.org.

Reading Across Rhode Island is a project of the Rhode Island Center for the Book at Providence Public Library. RARI 2007 is sponsored by Fidelity Investments, Reading with Robin, a local radio talk show about books, Barnes & Noble, Bryant University, Newport Federal, RI Network for Educational Technology and Penguin Books.