St. Peter Reads Announces 2010 Winter Read Selection

Unity in Community-St. Peter Reads has announced that the novel False Mermaid by Erin Hart has been chosen as the 2010 Winter Read. Hart will be in St. Peter Tuesday, March 16 for a writing workshop, book signing, and atmospheric reading.

This will be a return trip to St. Peter for Hart who came to town in January of 2004 after her novel Haunted Ground was chosen as the Winter Read that year. As in 2004, Hart will once again be accompanied by her husband, Paddy O’Brien. O’Brien and his traditional Irish music trio, Chulrua, will also perform on March 16.

The full schedule for March 16 is as follows:

• 1:00 p.m. / Writing Workshop with Erin Hart for 5^th graders at North Elementary School
• 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. / Workshop and mini concert by Chulrua at the Senior Center at the St. Peter Community Center
• 4-5:00 p.m. / Book signing with Erin Hart at the St. Peter Public Library
• 7:00 p.m. / Atmospheric reading with music and images with Erin Hart and Chulrua at Trinity Lutheran Church

There will also be two book discussions held on Thursday, March 25. One will take place at Noon at the St. Peter Public Library and the second will take place at 6:30 p.m. at the St. Peter Food Co-op.

Unity in Community-St. Peter Reads was created in 2003 as a community-wide reading program. Since the late 1990s a phenomena from coast to coast has been the idea of having a city, a county, or even an entire state choosing one book to read and discuss. St. Peter followed in the footsteps of other Minnesota cities such as Duluth, Fergus Falls, Rochester, Owatonna, St. Paul, and Minneapolis.

Since its inception, the program has read and discussed books such as The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Population: 485 by Michael Perry, and Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.

The appearance by Hart and Chulrua is made possible by a grant provided by the Traverse des Sioux Library System and is funded in part by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4, 2008. Unity in Community-St. Peter Reads is also affiliated with the Friends of the St. Peter Public Library and the Reading in Common program at Gustavus Adolphus College.

False Mermaid will be released on March 2 and copies will be available for purchase at the Book Mark at Gustavus, the St. Peter Public Library, Nutter’s Clothing, Swedish Kontur Imports, Whiskey River, the Nicollet County Treaty Site History Center, the St. Peter Community Education Office, River Rock Coffee, Waldo’s Coffee Company, Patrick’s on Third, the Arts Center of St. Peter, and the St. Peter Herald. For more information contact Judy Schultz at 507-933-6017 or jdschult@gustavus.edu.