Liz Smith spoke with great anticipation
of the upcoming Gala. "Thank God for Literacy Partners. We
have a hot, for the lack of a better word, line up of
authors, including Whoopi Goldberg, Katie Couric,
Michael Connelly and Stacy Schiff. We are going
to have a lot of fun on May 16th. We are so
happy that Louise and Leonard Riggio are our
honorees. They are the book-loving, reading 'stars' that we
crave."
"Currently, there are over 300 students
on our waiting list to take classes from Literacy Partners,?
Mark Jackson, Chief Legal Officer for Dow Jones and Chairman
of Literacy Partners, said at the event. ?The Gala will be
our most important fundraising effort and its success makes
a real difference in how many students we can serve."
This year's Kick-off attendees included
Yanna Avis, Barbara Taylor Bradford, OBE, Peter Brown, Helen
Gurley Brown, Luke Parker Bowles,
Mario Buatta, Karen Burke, Gina Centrello, Alina Cho,
Carol Higgins Clark, Markus Dohle,
Renee Flemming, Jane Friedman,
Marjorie and Ellery Gordon, Sharon King Hoge, Tim Jessell,
Susan Wendy Jeffrey, John H. Josephson, Judith Miller, Paul
Licalsi, Iris Love, Susan Magrino Dunning, Jackie Rogers,
Caroline Reidy, Shirley Rosenthal, and Calvin Trillin,
among others.
Literacy Partners 27th annual
Evening of Readings Gala will take place at Lincoln
Center on May 16. Barnes & Noble Founder Leonard Riggio
and his wife, philanthropist Louise Riggio, are this
year's Gala honorees. Gala readers will include authors and
TV personalities Whoopi Goldberg and Katie Couric.
Distinguished writers Michael Connelly, author of
City of Bones, Chasing the Dime, and The Lincoln Lawyer,
and Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning
nonfiction writer and author of the current bestseller
Cleopatra: A Life and guest columnist for The New
York Times, will also read from their own works.