Museum offers free admission Saturday

The Nevada State Museum will offer free admission for families and a whole slate of free programs in honor of Nevada Day.

Local musician Susan Botich will set the stage with guitar music in the museum's South Changing Gallery starting about 12:30 p.m.

Then join New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins as she shares Characters of the Comstock, an hour of stories gleaned from Virginia City's boom-and-bust history. This program features storytelling and tall tales for ages 10-adult and begins at 1:30 p.m. in the South Changing Gallery.

The fun continues upstairs in the auditorium from 2:30-4:30 p.m., as Hopkins leads a creative writing workshop for students in grades 6-8 and their parents.

Participants will create newspaper stories with the flavor of Dan DeQuille's tall tales. The workshop is free, but enrollment is limited. Advanced registration is required for the workshop.

Hopkins is a poet and author, with 20 published nonfiction books for children and four best-selling young adult novels. Ellen is the assistant regional adviser for the Sierra Nevada chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and a member of Ash Canyon Poets. She is a Nevada Artist in Residence and a Nevada Arts Council Tumblewords artist. She has lived in Nevada for 20 years.

Contact Deborah Stevenson at 687-4810, ext 237.

Hopkins' presentation and workshop are Tumblewords events, part of the Nevada Touring Initiative, a program of the Nevada Arts Council supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and Western States Arts Federation.