Photo The Mapping Project, Filling Up The Map

On December 4, I’m beginning a new weekly project at the Mansion, a reading to the residents every week in the early afternoon. The residents unanimously chose this option offer a writing workshop, and I am delighted with the choice.

They want me to begin the program by reading from one of my books, we chose “Saving Simon,” the story of my battered and loving donkey Simon, who was rescued from a nearby farm near death. Simon died four years ago.

But I want to broaden the reading topics beyond my work, and I hope the Army Of Good can help. We can choose our reading subjects together. I’ve written 26 books and can read from the for years, but I  hope to do more than that.

If you have any suggestions for good or interesting writing for me to read to the residents, please copy or print it out and send it to me: Jon Katz. P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y.,12816.

We’re going to meet in the Activity Room, 15 to 20 people have signed up. I’ll read five to ten pages, and then we’ll talk about the subject matter. I love the idea of our all reading to the residents, not just me, so if  you have any ideas, please send them along to me.

I’m looking forward to this, can’t think of a better place to be on a bitter cold afternoon in the winter. I hope will have our Karaoke machine by then.

Note: The photo above is of the Mansion Mapping Project, people reading the blog send short essays about their town or village or city, and photos of possible. Julie Smith, the Mansion Activities Director, posts the messages up on bulletin boards and puts a pin in the map to represent each town.

The Mansion residents love this. You can send your essays to:

[email protected] or mail them to Julie c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. This is a huge hit among the residents, they love to learn about other places – most of them are farm people – and they love to know there are people out there who care about them.