The Victoria Mansion has received a $7,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to host the Big Read, an NEA initiative designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.

The Victoria Mansion is the only arts organization in Maine and one of 208 around the country to receive a grant for the program.

To encourage community-wide participation, Victoria Mansion will partner with Portland Public Library, Maine Humanities Council and the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Many other arts and educational groups also will be involved, including the University of Southern Maine, Livermore Falls High School and Skyline Farm.

The program brings communities together to read and discuss one of 23 selections from American and world literature. In Portland, the Big Read will focus on "The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton.
The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. Set in the late 1800s in upper-class New York, it focuses on the disruption of a pending marriage of a society couple.

Activities will begin in Portland in March.

"I am thrilled to be taking part in the Big Read," mansion director Robert Wolterstorff said in a statement. "We've received major federal grant for restoration projects before, but this is the first one to support programming, and it's a great honor to receive this grant in the year we celebrate our 150th anniversary."

Grant sizes ranged from $2,500 to $20,000, based on population. In addition, the Victoria Mansion also received $4,000 from the Maine Humanities Council to support Big Read activities.

The money will be used to support reading programs, read-a-thons, discussions, lectures, movie screening and performing arts events. Communities participating in the Big Read also receive educational materials for readers and teachers.

For information about the Big Read, visit www.neabigread.org.

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