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Pen Pals celebrates its 12th season this fall with a stellar lineup of literary figures.

Our venue at Hopkins Center for the Arts offers great sound and sight lines for the entire house, as well as nearby restaurants and convenient parking.

Sign up for the Pen Pals Mailing List by sending your name, address, phone number, and email address to foundation@hclib.org.

Michael Beschloss Thurs, Sep. 25, 2008, 7:30 pm Fri, Sep. 26, 2008, 11 am. What makes a great president? With the ’08 campaign heating up, this question is more relevant than ever. Michael Beschloss believes the answer is “presidential courage.” Hailed by Newsweek as the “nation’s leading presidential historian,” Beschloss has written nine books including: The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-1945, and most recently, Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989.

Alexandra Fuller Thurs, Oct. 23, 2008, 7:30 pm Fri, Oct. 24, 2008, 11 am. Alexandra Fuller grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) during a period of great political instability. Her family traveled in groups, always on the lookout for mines and booby traps. At home, they had to be alert for natural hazards of the region, including scorpions, snakes and six-foot lizards that often found their way into the house. At age seven, Fuller learned to strip, clean, load and fire guns and automatic weapons in order to survive. This is the backdrop of Fuller’s critically acclaimed memoir Don't Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood.

Tony Kushner Dec. 11, 2008, 7:30 pm Fri, Dec. 12, 2008, 11 am. Playwright Tony Kushner took the theater world by storm in the early 1990s with his epic drama, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. A seven-hour play in two separate parts, Angels in America explores in uncompromising terms what it was like to be gay and affected by AIDS during the 1980s and 1990s. Angels in America won great acclaim from drama critics, garnering both the Pulitzer Prize for drama and two Antoinette Perry (Tony) awards for best play in 1993 and 1994. Other works to Kushner’s credit include Caroline or Change, and the screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s Munich.

Tim O’Brien Thurs, Mar. 19, 2009, 7:30 pm Fri, Mar. 20, 2009, 11: a.m. Born in Austin, Minnesota, Tim O’Brien has said it was cowardice, not courage, that led him to defer admittance into Harvard in favor of combat in Vietnam. He has since explored definitions of courage – moral, physical, political – in his fiction, a body of work that has, at least until recently, dealt almost exclusively with America’s most unpopular war. His first book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home looked at the war through a collection of vignettes written for newspapers in Minnesota. In 1978, Going After Cacciato won the National Book Award. Other books include The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods.

Richard Russo Thurs, May 14, 2009, 7:30 pm Fri, May 15, 2009, 11 am. Richard Russo is best known for the best-seller Empire Falls, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2002 and was adapted into the acclaimed HBO mini-series, starring Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Helen Hunt. His six other novels include Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody’s Fool, Straight Man, and most recently, Bridge of Sighs. He has also written numerous screenplays including Twilight, Keeping Mum, and The Ice Harvest, as well as the teleplay for Empire Falls.

TICKET INFORMATION

Season renewals on sale through June 23rd.
New Subscriptions go on sale June 24th.
Tickets to individual lectures go on sale August 5th.

Season Tickets (5 lecture series)
$175 Main Floor
$150 Balcony
$5 per seat processing fee for season tickets

Individual Tickets
$45 Main Floor
$35 Balcony
$5 processing fee per ticket

Discounted tickets available for students and groups of 10 or more.

Call Uptowntix at 651-209-6799 or visit online at www.uptowntix.com

PROGRAM LOCATION

	Book clubs can reserve book club kits for Pen Pals authors.

Previous PenPals Seasons Authors