Ashes In the Snow with Ruta Sepetys

Join Denver Arts & Venues for a FREE professional development opportunity. PLEASE NOTE, the location has been changed to McNichols Civic Center Building, 144 W. Colfax Ave., 3rd Floor.

ASHES IN THE SNOW is the movie adaptation of the bestselling YA novel, BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY by Ruta Sepetys, which was a 2015 Blue Spruce Award Nominee. The movie will be in select theaters this January!

You are invited to a screening of the movie, a conversation with Ruta, and training on how you can use the movie and book with your students/community to illustrate the historical significance of the Lithuanian deportation during WWII and how it relates to current events. This training will be particularly interesting to educators and those who engage and work with immigrant communities.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is excited to partner with Ms. Ruta Sepetys, the #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray; and Mr. Marius Markevicius, director of Ashes in the Snow, as well as Penguin Young Readers to deliver a workshop to assist educators in teaching about the Baltic deportations through the incorporation of the novel and film.

Based on the successful approach of its National Seminar for Middle and High School Educators, the workshop provides content knowledge, pedagogic support, and peer-to-peer sharing to empower teachers in their classroom. Foundation faculty include Dr. Murray Bessette, Director of Academic Programs, and Mr. Naphtali Rivkin, Baltic Studies Program Manager.

The workshop agenda includes:

• Welcome
• Screening of Ashes in the Snow
• Q&A with Ms. Sepetys
• Workshop on Baltic Deportations led by Mr. Rivkin
• Workshop on Between Shades of Gray and Ashes in the Snow as tools for teaching about the Deportations led by Dr. Bessette and Mr. Rivkin (45 minutes)
• Thank you

About Denver Arts & Venues
So that all may thrive, Arts & Venues enriches and advances Denver’s quality of life and economic vitality through premier public venues, arts, cultural and entertainment opportunities.

Arts & Venues is the City and County of Denver agency responsible for operating some of the region’s most renowned facilities, including Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, the Denver Performing Arts Complex, Colorado Convention Center, Denver Coliseum and McNichols Civic Center Building. Arts & Venues also oversees the Denver Public Art Program, Create Denver, SCFD Tier III granting process, Arts Education Fund and other entertainment and cultural events such as the Five Points Jazz Festival, Urban Arts Fund, P.S. You Are Here and implementation of IMAGINE 2020: Denver’s Cultural Plan. Denver Arts & Venues is committed to diversity, equity and inclusiveness in all our programs, initiatives and decision-making processes.

About Ruta Sepetys
Ruta Sepetys is an internationally acclaimed author of historical fiction published in over sixty countries and more than forty languages. Sepetys is considered a “crossover” novelist as her books are read by both teens and adults worldwide. Her novels, Between Shades of Gray and Out of the Easy are both New York Times bestsellers and international bestsellers. Her books have won or been shortlisted for over forty book prizes, are included on over forty state reading lists, and are currently in development for film and television.

Ruta is the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee. Born in Michigan, she was raised in a family of artists, readers, and music lovers. She was recently bestowed the Cross of the Knight of the Order by the President of Lithuania for her contributions to education and memory preservation. She is intensely proud to be Lithuanian, even if that means she has a name no one can pronounce.

About the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is an educational and human rights nonprofit organization authorized by a unanimous Congressional Act, which was signed as Public Law 103-199 by President William J. Clinton on December 17, 1993. From 2003 to 2009, President George W. Bush was Honorary Chairman of the Foundation. On June 12, 2007, he dedicated the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C.