As part of the Plan to Promote Reading, two programmes will bring together more than 330 creators in public schools until June, with priority given to those affected by the DANA in the provinces of Valencia and Albacete.
Within the framework of the Plan for the Promotion of Reading, the Ministry of Culture, through the Directorate General for Books, Comics and Reading, is launching a new edition of the programmes of literary activities in public Secondary Schools (IES) and ‘Drawers of Stories’ in public Art Schools. On this occasion, they bring together more than 330 creators in the 417 activities that will take place until 13 June throughout Spain. In this edition, priority has been given to schools that have been affected by the DANA in the provinces of Valencia and Albacete.
Literary activities in schools
With more than two decades of experience, the programme of literary activities in public secondary schools is divided into two modalities: ‘Literary Encounters’ and ‘Why read the classics’. Both consist of visits by authors to educational centres and aim to encourage the habit of reading among students by bringing the work of Spanish authors, both classic and contemporary, to the students from a different point of view to that of formal education.
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For the ‘Literary Encounters’ category, 335 activities have been programmed throughout Spain, in which 258 authors, including Manuel Rivas, winner of the National Prize for Spanish Literature; Mónica Rodríguez, winner of the National Prize for Children’s and Young People’s Literature; and Raúl Quinto, winner of the National Narrative Prize, will visit different public secondary schools throughout Spain.
There will be 91 meetings in Andalusia; 15 in Aragon; 6 in the Principality of Asturias; 2 in the Balearic Islands; 6 in Cantabria; 18 in the Canary Islands; 40 in Castilla y León; 19 in Castilla-La Mancha; 3 in Catalonia; 25 in Extremadura; 16 in Galicia; 3 in La Rioja; 38 in the Community of Madrid; 13 in the Region of Murcia; 2 in Navarre; 2 in the Basque Country; 30 in the Community of Valencia, and 2 in Ceuta. In addition, there will be a meeting in Lisbon (Portugal), another in Sardinia (Italy) and two in France, one in Saint-Jean-de-Luz and the other in Ferney-Voltaire.
Meanwhile, in the ‘Why read the classics’ category, an activity that focuses on the work or figure of an author whose transcendence goes beyond a specific historical period or literary current, 40 meetings have been scheduled for this year. Among the 38 authors taking part are Benjamín Prado, Care Santos and Aurora Luque.
In this case, the programme offers 11 meetings in Andalusia; 1 in Aragon; 1 in the Balearic Islands; 1 in Cantabria; 1 in the Canary Islands; 3 in Castilla y León; 4 in Castilla-La Mancha; 3 in Extremadura; 3 in Galicia; 4 in the Community of Madrid; 1 in the Region of Murcia, and 7 in the Community of Valencia.
Illustration and comics in art schools
Similarly, the programme ‘Dibujantes de historias. Encuentros literarios en Escuelas de Arte’, which aims to support creators dedicated mainly to illustration and comics, will have a total of 42 meetings, distributed throughout Spain. Thirty-nine authors will take part in this activity, including Bea Lema, Ana Penyas and Javier Olivares, all of them winners of the Ministry of Culture’s National Comic Prize.
These meetings are held in public schools that offer professional education in plastic arts and design. Their main purpose is to contribute to the development of quality artistic training that guarantees the qualification of future plastic arts and design professionals.
By autonomous communities, 8 meetings will be organised in Andalusia; 2 in Aragon; 1 in the Principality of Asturias; 4 in the Canary Islands; 1 in Cantabria; 2 in the Balearic Islands; 4 in Castilla y León; 6 in Castilla-La Mancha; 3 in Catalonia; 1 in Extremadura; 3 in Galicia; 1 in the Region of Murcia; 2 in Navarre, 3 in the Community of Madrid, and 1 in Ceuta.
Selection criteria
In the selection of the proposed activities, priority was given to those institutes participating in the program for the first time or which had no activity the previous year. Likewise, the diversity of literary genres (narrative, poetry, theatre, essay, translation and illustration), the variety of the author’s career, parity, the balanced representation of the different territories or the presence of the two types of activity included in the programme were also taken into account.
In turn, in the ‘Cartoonists of Stories’ programme, it has been the centres themselves who, depending on their programming, have proposed the participation of the creators and agreed with them on the themes to be dealt with, the format and the date on which the activity will be held.