The start of the 2019 Qidong Reading Festival is marked with a ceremony held at the Qidong Library on April 20. The reading festival is a celebration of World Book and Copyright Day, which falls on April 23. [Photo/WeChat account of Qidong Broadcast and TV Station]

The start of the 2019 Qidong Reading Festival was marked with a ceremony held at the Qidong Library on April 20. The reading festival is a celebration of World Book and Copyright Day, which falls on April 23. 

This year's reading festival will run from April to October. 

During the ceremony, Jiang Ping, director of the Qidong publicity department, expressed hope that many activities would be held during the festival to get more people interested in reading. 

Following Jiang's speech, an award ceremony was held to honor the winners of a writing competition, after which there was a recital by a group of students from Ziwei Primary School. 

After the ceremony, a lecture on prose writing was delivered by Zhang Zonggang, a professor from the Poetics Research Center of Nanjing University of Science and Technology.

According to local authorities, a series of activities will be held during the festival, including a serialized lecture program, a reading workshop, reading competitions for schools, institutions, and companies, and a book launch ceremony.

Jiang Ping, director of the Qidong publicity department, speaks at the ceremony. [Photo/WeChat account of Qidong Broadcast and TV Station]