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.

Students from Casco Bay High School will be at Space Gallery, 538 Congress St., Portland, from noon to 1:30 p.m. today to interview people in the community about what matters to them.

The students are participating in a weeklong intensive program, the Telling Room, a nonprofit writing program in Portland dedicated to young writers and storytellers between the ages of 8 and 18.

The students will spend five minutes interviewing participants and taking their photos. They are looking for contributors from all sectors. If you have a spare five minutes, stop by.

Kate McKeown, a 10th-grader from Leavitt Area High School in Turner, will represent Maine at the National Poetry Out Loud finals in Washington, D.C., in April. She will compete for a $20,000 college scholarship.

McKeown won the state finals in Lewiston earlier this month.

Poetry Out Loud is a partnership among the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation and all of the nation’s state arts agencies. It began with more than 100,000 students across the United States competing, including more than 1,000 in Maine.

As winner of the state final, McKeown receives $200, and her school receives a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry books. She also receives a paid trip to compete in the National Finals in Washington, D.C., April 28-29. The second-place finisher, Lydia McOscar of Bangor High School, will receive $100, with $200 going to her school library.