<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center"><b>A Celebration of Literature at Ancram Center for the Arts<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center"><b>July 13 & 14</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><b> </b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Finished your Netflix queue and unsure what to watch next? Uninspired by the offerings at the local movie theater? Here’s an antidote to the summer screen blahs: live readings of electrifying fiction over two days at Ancram Center for the Arts.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)">On Saturday, July 13 at 7:30pm,<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>Crystal Radio Sessions,<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></b>the curated fiction reading series back for its sixth season at the Center, will feature these notable writers: Jo Ann Beard (<em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt">Maybe It Happened</span></em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt">The Longest Night</span></em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">); Jackelyn Hoy (</span><em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt">Breaking);</span></em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>and Kyra Simone (</span><em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt">The Smallest of Hearths)</span></em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">.</span><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>Actors Thomas Rothacker and Erin Lindsey Krom will conjure<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">a Paris apartment fire, a childhood afternoon, a woman's goodbye to her best friend, and an encounter with a mysterious babysitter.</span><span style="font-family:Montserrat;letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="font-family:Montserrat;letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">On Sunday, July 14, at 3:00pm, Ancram Center will host a 150^th<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>birthday celebration for<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>Willa Cather<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>(1873-1947), one of the most singular and treasured American writers of the 20th century. A peer of Edith Wharton who was admired by Henry James, Hemingway and Faulkner, Cather was an<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">author who wrote against the grain of her own cultural moment, when Modernist experimentation was in vogue. Sticking to her own style, Cather wrote in steadfast, even plain language about the lives of settlers on the prairies during the homesteading era of the late 19^th<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>century.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">In recent years scholars have rediscovered Cather’s groundbreaking fiction (</span><em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt">O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, One of Ours, The Professor’s House, Death Comes for the Archbishop</span></em><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">) and consider her to be a canonical American writer. This performance, created in partnership with the Willa Cather Foundation and directed by Darrah Cloud, features readings from Cather's fiction and letters performed by actors Dean Temple and Anne Undeland. The performance follows readings at Symphony Space (hosted by Ken Burns, a huge advocate for her work), Boston Athenaeum, New York Society Library, Kaatsbaan Arts Center, and UCLA.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">Tickets for both events are available at <a href="http://www.ancramcenter.org">www.ancramcenter.org</a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Ancram Center for the Arts is an award-winning theater located in New York's Hudson Valley. Housed in an historic Grange Hall, Ancram Center has since 2016 presented groundbreaking theater and musical performances by nationally recognized theater artists. Ancram Center for the Arts receives significant annual support from the New York State Council on the Arts and in 2023 was awarded a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. For tickets and information visit <a href="http://www.ancramcenter.org/" target="_blank">www.ancramcenter.org</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"> </span></p><img src="cid:ii_lyc5gjdl0" alt="Crystal_Radio_Upstate_logo.jpeg" width="542" height="541"><br><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"></span></p><img src="cid:ii_lyc5gym31" alt="Willa Cather.jpg" width="542" height="470"><br><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="letter-spacing:0.25pt;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:medium;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </p></div>