Stop the Hate event at WVC May 8 features Ana Maria Spagna

Media Contact: Derek Sheffield, English faculty, 509.682.6737, or Bertha Sanchez, counselor, 509.682.6856, or Christine Johnson, counselor, 509.682.6857

A Stop the Hate event at Wenatchee Valley College will feature a reading by local author Ana Maria Spagna at 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, at The Grove Recital Hall, Music and Art Center. This event is free and open to the public.

Spagna will give a reading from her works, which focus on the theme of finding community. A book signing will follow the reading, and Spagna's books will be available for purchase.

The reading is part of a series of events designed to promote community and acceptance and to raise awareness at the college. The event is sponsored by a WVC Foundation Faculty Development Grant.

Spagna is the author of Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter's Civil Rights Journey, winner of the River Teeth literary nonfiction prize and finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She has also published two collections of essays, Potluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness and Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw, a Seattle Times Best Book of 2004. Her distinctive voice is often praised for its warmth, insight and humor, and her work appears regularly in journals and magazines including Orion, Portland, Creative Nonfiction and High Country News, and has been listed as "notable" in Best American Essays.

Spagna was born in Bogota, Colombia, and raised in Riverside, Calif., but has lived most of her adult life in Stehekin, a remote community in the North Cascades accessible only by boat, foot or float plane. She teaches creative nonfiction at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts where she serves as assistant director of the MFA program.

Stop the Hate is an educational initiative of Campus Pride and supports colleges and universities in preventing and combating hate on campus as well as fostering the development of community. The national program serves as the premiere source of anti-hate educational resources for higher education institutions and campus communities.

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Wenatchee Valley College enriches North Central Washington by serving educational and cultural needs of communities and residents throughout the service area. The college provides high-quality transfer, liberal arts, professional/technical, basic skills and continuing education for students of diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds. Visit our website at www.wvc.edu.