On May 14th The Actors and Writers Book Club held an event at Mount Lebanon High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Actor William Baldwin read a selection from John Steinbeck's "East Of Eden" to two sessions of one hundred students each. After the reading, Baldwin and filmmaker/writer Susanna Styron discussed the novel and then took questions about the creative process. Baldwin "found the kids to be curious and engaged. They asked a lot of interesting and insightful questions and seemed excited by the event." Baldwin shared that his neigh in California, Thomas Steinbeck, John's son, "made the recommendations for both the book and the passage from his father's work."
Styron thought the event was a great success, adding, "It was very gratifying to see how absorbed the kids were in Billy’s reading and how engaged they were in talking about the writing process during the follow-up. Their questions were smart and thoughtful and many of them stayed afterwards to talk more about writing." Jim Walsh, the Supervisor of English and Language Arts at Mount Lebanon High School said, "It was an excellent opportunity for our students. It could not have gone any better unless maybe we had more time. I was so pleased and proud to host this event here. We’d love to do it again sometime." Tom Kelly helped coordinate the event of behalf of the Writers Guild of America East Foundation, "that's what is so incredible about the WGAE Foundation, which has such diverse programs, involving so many talented artists and touching the lives of such diverse groups of people." The WGAE Foundation Book Club works in
conjunction with the NEA's Big Read Program.
