Partner Hub

The 2025 book will be revealed in early March. At that time, this form will be live and we invite you to sign up. Please sign up for our eNewsletter or follow us on social media to make sure you don’t miss it! If you have any other questions, please contact Aditya Desai, Program Officer at adesai@mdhumanities.org.

Press Kit

 

VIRTUAL INFORMATIONAL SESSION:
Partnering with OMOB 2025 — What We Collect, What We Tell
Registration Required.

Maryland Humanities is inviting cultural and educational organizations across the state to partner with us for the 2025 One Maryland One Book.

OMOB Partner organizations help spread the love and practice of literature by designing, leading, and promoting an event or program in conjunction with the OMOB theme and book in Fall 2025. This session welcomes both new and long-time OMOB partners!

The 2025 theme is What We Collect, What We Tell, which seeks to engage audiences on how we preserve stories. Come join us to discuss how your organization:

  • How does your organization collect or preserve community stories or histories?
    How are you interpreting and telling these stories for new audiences?
    What skills, crafts, or media can help you tell the story in a new way for today’s audience?

At the information session, you will get a chance to:

  • Learn about One Maryland One Book program and the Fall 2025 Author Tour.
  • Connect with other organizations in the state doing similar work.
  • Participate in a guided activity to brainstorm ideas for a program or event.
  • Discuss different types of collections and archives, and what formats, tools, or resources can bring it to the community.

We’re looking for local agencies, cultural institutions, and community organizations that:

  • Serve their cultural, regional, or faith/spiritual identities
  • Serve BIPOC, immigrant, and other ethnic minority identities
  • Collect, preserve, or store materials unique to their community
  • Work with media, press, and publishing
  • Preserve and promote local histories

*These are examples and not criteria – we embrace all sizes of organizations and interpret “collection” widely – – it can be physical, digital, or oral. It can be housed in a museum, library, storage unit, or an attic. And for memories waiting to be told…we hope this session might help you find the way to tell them.

Become a Program Partner with One Maryland One Book and receive reading guides, bookmarks, posters, and a chance for program funding.

1. Sign up!

The deal is simple: if you’ll put on a program that explore the themes and topics of our book, we’ll send you a batch of copies — for free. Fill out our Program Partner Form to sign up.

2. Distribute and promote!

Get the book to your audiences! Remind them when and where the event will take place. Be sure to get your event on our calendar as well, along with many other OMOB events happening across the state.

3. Discuss, engage, and learn!

Take in the truly “novel” experience of connecting with members in your community over the shared experience of reading the same book. There’s nothing else like it — and the diversity of perspectives and experiences each brings broaden what we take away from the page and each other.

Sign up to be Program Partner!

Promotional Materials

Find images and language to use in your program promotion, including book cover, author bio, sponsor logos, and more.

Click Here for the Partner Package

Guides & Materials

Every year we work with educators and partners to bring you relevant information to enhance your reading of the One Maryland One Book. We produce a Reader’s Guide, Teacher’s Guide, and a Community Partner’s Toolkit.

These resources are created by Maryland Humanities along with community collaborators to provide information about the book, its context, and the author, as well as possible topics, themes, and activities for planning your programs, classrooms, and events.

Below you will find 2024’s guides and toolkit. Check back for 2025’s materials later this year.

Reader's Guide PDF
Teacher's Guide PDF
Community Partner Toolkit

Keep the conversation going with a book club

We love to hear about great conversations and stories of all the interesting book-related programs you attended. It’s not unusual for One Maryland One Book conversations to inspire participants to start a new book club. If you are interested in starting a book club, we recommend that you take a peek at the I love libraries website.

Want discussion questions or other materials to help get the conversation rolling? Contact Aditya Desai.

 

  • “For most of my 10th grade students, this was the first book they have read from cover to cover.”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 teacher

  • “This program is a gift, literally and figuratively!”

    One Maryland One Book 2015 teacher

  • “I distributed copies of the book and we engaged in an afterschool discussion which included students and staff. Everyone who participated was so engaged that our 45 minute planned discussion ended up stretching into an hour and a half!”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 teacher

  • “[One Maryland One Book] is wonderful; enlightening, explorative, innovative, [and] educational.”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 participant

  • “We had our best attendance, ever, for a book discussion, in the seven years I’ve been here.”

    One Maryland One Book 2015 participant

  • “What a discussion! That what’s needed in every town, city, and every age group.”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 participant

  • “I completed the book club with 22 students, all of them on the JV football team – so not your stereotypical group of book club attendees. On the last day of our book club experience I asked students for some feedback and also asked if they would be interested in participating in another book club. Nearly all of them said that this was the first time they had ever participated in a book club, and a few said it was the first time they had actually read an entire book. I keep hearing back from them, too, [asking] ‘When is the next book club starting up?’. The discussions we had were powerful and meaningful–this was truly one of the most moving experiences I have had as an educator.”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 teacher

  • “My students have been removed from their home schools. Right away, they made comments about the diction of the text, how it seemed realistic to them and they pointed out words they would have changed. We talked about word choice, slang, etc. I had 2 instances where students were excited to see me because they had events similar to the book happen to them and they needed to tell someone. They want to know how to change things. […] These kids typically failed English class or were chronic non-attenders or were removed before they came here. They are excited about reading a book! Teacher librarian win!”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 teacher

  • “A sophomore on our school’s state-champ runner-up varsity football team was so taken by Joe’s story of the sophomore year on the boat that he got his dad (the coach) and several members of his team to read the book even though they weren’t assigned it in class. Another student described a discussion she got into with her math teacher after school about the relevance of the English curriculum and used her experience with Brown’s work and the field trip to convince her teacher that humanities are just as important as STEM. Great stuff!”

    ​One Maryland One Book 2015 teacher

  • “[One Maryland One Book taught me that] these types of book discussions that include diverse populations across the state open necessary dialogues to help solve problems. We need to have many more.”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 participant

  • “One student in my book club who is in a wheelchair and has a lot of other persona/home issues, was the first to finish the book, and wheeled herself into the library more than once to ask me if I had finished the book because she wanted to talk about it. She was a huge contributor to the discussion.”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 teacher

  • “The book selections offer an opportunity to read a book that is informative and engaging. It enhances our view of the world and the individuals within it. We sincerely look forward to the OMOB selections and materials each year. It is a topic of excitement and discussion among students and staff. Truly and wonderfully.”

    ​One Maryland One Book teacher

  • “Left on my own, I would choose the same kind of books over and over again. Now, [participating in One Maryland One Book,] my reading experience is broader and richer and all the more enjoyable.”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 participant

  • “[One Maryland One Book is] excellent! I come to as many of the One Maryland One Book events and will continue to do so—always pleased!”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 participant

  • “The impact of this particular book was probably stronger than any other Maryland One Book due to the connections we could make with real world events and police brutality in the headlines. Many groups were reading and discussing the book at our school: Student Equity Team, Drama Club, Faculty book club, sociology and English classes. It fostered important discussions about race relations.”

    One Maryland One Book 2016 teacher
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