The Library Foundation of Los Angeles
is honored to have the support of author Terry Tempest Williams
as Chair of the 34th annual Stay Home and Read a Book Ball
Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of Erosion: Essays of Undoing; The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks; Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; Finding Beauty in a Broken World; and When Women Were Birds, among other books. Her work is widely taught and anthologized around the world. She is currently the Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School and divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah.
Dearest Readers:
Greetings. What we thought was a pause is now a place and without our public libraries to transport us out of our isolation to other worlds with other characters in far-off lands, these past few years during the pandemic would have been intolerable.
Our hometown libraries are an essential part of “the open space of democracy” where freedom of mind, of choice, and flights of imaginations can flourish. In the case of the Los Angeles Public Library, I love visiting as a reader and as a writer whenever I come to the City of Angels. It is a compass point of spirited engagement. The public programs that support childhood literacy to community reading challenges to conversations with authors all contribute to the vibrant literary life of Los Angeles.
On March 6, 2022, The Stay Home and Read a Book Ball will celebrate its 34th year!
As a self-proclaimed recluse in the red rock desert of Utah, so grateful for not having to exchange my cowboy boots for heels, dress up, and engage in small talk, please join me in celebrating this magnificent cultural resource by staying home and reading a favorite passage from a cherished book as a reminder of what the companionship of a good book means to our sense of well being. Afterwords with gratitude, let us write a generous check as an action of conscience and consequence to the Los Angeles Public Library for all the ways they have gifted each of us with the wonder and awe of books in hand we have carried home, read, loved, and returned.
Wallace Stegner said, “Faith can reclaim deserts and move mountains.” Similarly, I believe our faith in libraries can reclaim lost landscapes of hope and restore us to places of possibilities by reading our way home.
Respectfully yours,
Terry Tempest Williams
Proceeds raised through the 34th Annual Stay Home and Read a Book Ball
will directly support the Los Angeles Public Library’s Cybernauts program.
Cybernauts are trained computer support staff that provide much needed on-demand technological assistance and small group trainings to Library users. Cybernauts work to advance digital equity in Los Angeles by helping individuals and communities develop the critical skills needed for full participation in society, democracy, and the economy.
Visit LFLA.org/StayHome to donate online, or mail donations to:
The Library Foundation of Los Angeles
630 W 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071
The Library Foundation of Los Angeles is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation (tax ID# 95-4368250).
No goods or services are provided in exchange for donations to the Stay Home and Read a Book Ball, and all contributions are fully tax-deductible. Donations for this annual fundraiser are separate from Membership.