Few things can bring people together like a good book — something that Kenyon supporters of a communal reading experience in Knox County hope to prove again and again over the next eight weeks.
Starting Saturday, Feb. 15 and continuing into mid-April, more than 40 local events are planned around Charles Yu’s novel “Interior Chinatown,” a number of them on campus and led by faculty and students.
It’s all part of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read, done in collaboration with Arts Midwest. The Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County received a $20,000 grant to support the initiative.
The effort builds upon and expands longstanding partnerships between the library and College, according to Jamie Lyn Smith-Fletcher ’96, the library’s deputy director of development, special projects and writing programs.
"It’s always a delight to collaborate with Kenyon students and faculty, but this NEA Big Read celebration promises to be particularly spectacular in showcasing the breathtaking range of arts, culture and literary programs that the Kenyon community adds to the mix while exploring the 2025 program theme ‘Where We Live.’”
Upcoming events at the College include an ekphrastic writing workshop at The Gund on Feb. 27 and an Appalachian square dance workshop led by Eve Currens ’25 at the Brown Family Environmental Center on Feb. 28. Multiple programs highlighting children’s books will take place at The Annex.
Faculty members will share their expertise as well. Andy Grace, assistant professor of English, is leading a poetry workshop on Feb. 20, and two members of the Department of Film, Jonathan Tazewell ’84 and Hao Zhou, will offer a screenwriting workshop April 3.
Student groups are getting in on the fun, too. While a major kickoff event will take place at the library in Mount Vernon at noon on Saturday, Feb. 15, Sunset Press is hosting a book giveaway of “Interior Chinatown” and a write-in at the Kenyon Bookstore later that day beginning at 2 p.m.
NEA Big Read Chair Ira Sukrungruang, Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing, said he is thrilled that Yu’s book is getting all this attention. He hopes that Kenyon students will take advantage of the opportunity to see the award-winning author when he visits March 23 for an event at Knox Memorial Theater.
“His book ‘Interior Chinatown’ is probably one of the best books I’ve read in the last decade,” Sukrungruang said. “The biggest thrill for me is for students to meet working writers in the field who are not just their professors and to see how they’ve cultivated their life of art, how they’ve sustained it. That’s part of what I think builds a strong literary community.”
Yu’s novel — winner of the 2020 National Book Award and the basis for a Hulu series that debuted in November — is about a young Asian-American man who is unhappy with his role as a bit player on a TV series and in his own life. The book will be available for free from a variety of locations throughout Knox County, including Chalmers Library, The Gund, The Annex, and the Kenyon Bookstore.
Arden Seretean ’27 is working for the Mount Vernon library as an intern for the NEA Big Read and will be leading a discussion of Yu’s book with Assistant Professor of English Travis Chi Wing Lau at Finn House on March 18. As someone who would like to be an author one day, she’s looking forward to expanding her skill set by teaching writing workshops for children and adults over the course of the initiative.
“I’m very excited,” the English major from Pacific Palisades, California, said. “I love teaching, I love reading, I love writing — and I love talking to people, meeting new folks and offering my help.”
Nationally, 62 nonprofit organizations received grants for NEA Big Read programming that takes on shared reading experiences and uses them as inspiration for book discussions, writing workshops and other creative community-building activities. Other partners in the local initiative include Kenyon’s Office for Community Partnerships and the Mount Vernon Arts Consortium.
Given the many ways that Kenyon and the surrounding community are partnering together for this project, Sukrungruang said he expects that it will generate the energy for even more great things to come.
“One of the things that I would hope is it would lead to more writing and literary events that really tie Kenyon to the Mount Vernon community,” he said. “Attendance and participation at all of these events could really create a momentum that might be sustained for years to come.”
NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
