January 08, 2004

Bowling Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University and the Bowling Green community will begin the One Campus-One Community-One Book project next week.

Starting Jan. 15, participants will read Kentucky author Silas House's "A Parchment of Leaves" and participate in public discussions. The project ends March 19.

"I'm honored that one of my books has been chosen as the inaugural selection for Bowling Green's One Campus-One Community-One Book," said House, a winner of the Kentucky Literary Award. "One of the major themes of this book is community and the act of living together in a civil fashion with other people; it seems especially appropriate to me that lots of people will be reading it together, all at once. I love Bowling Green and the surrounding counties and I can't imagine a better group of people to share my work with. I'm looking forward to discussing the book with everyone in March."

"A Parchment of Leaves" tells the story of Vine, a beautiful Cherokee woman who marries a white man, forsaking her family and their homeland to settle with his people and make a home in the Kentucky mountains.

One Campus-One Community-One Book begins Jan. 15 with kickoff events at 2 p.m. at WKU's Java City in the Helm Library and at 6:30 p.m. at the Bowling Green Public Library. Free books will be given to the first 50 people in attendance. Barnes and Noble Booksellers on Campbell Lane will host a kickoff at 7 p.m. Jan. 16.

Book discussions are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Feb. 19 at the Bowling Green Public Library; 2 p.m. Feb. 26 at WKU's Java City; and 7 p.m. Feb. 27 at Barnes and Noble.

House will participate in the final discussions scheduled for 4 p.m. March 18 at WKU's Java City; 6:30 p.m. March 18 at Bowling Green Public Library; and 10:30 a.m. March 19 at Barnes and Noble.

"A Parchment of Leaves" debuted as a top 10 Booksense pick, became a national bestseller and was nominated for the Southern Book Critics Circle Prize, the Booksense Book of the Year, the William Sayoran International Literary Prize, the Southeast Booksellers Association Book Award and the Appalachian Writer's Association Book of the Year. The book won the Kentucky Literary Award and the Foreword magazine Bronze Book Award.

House, who lives in Lily, Ky., was recently voted Kentucky's favorite writer in a poll by Kentucky Monthly magazine.

House, whose first novel was "Clay's Quilt," has just completed his third novel, "The Coal Tattoo," which will be released this year.

The project, a partnership of WKU Libraries, the Bowling Green Public Library and Barnes and Noble, is funded in part by a grant from the Kentucky Humanities Council. Additional information is available online at www.BGonebook.org

For more information, contact Jayne Pelaski at (270) 745-5016. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.



-WKU-


Office of Media Relations
Western Kentucky University
1 Big Red Way, Bowling Green, Ky. 42101-3576
Phone: (270) 745-4295 ~ Fax: (270) 745-5387 ~ E-Mail: mailto:western@wku.edun@wku.edu">western@wku.edu