January 13, 2004
For Immediate Release
Contact: Kevin McFadden
434-924-6890
kjm7a@virginia.edu
VABook! 2004 to Feature Author Garrison Keillor
Popular Public Radio Host Comes to Charlottesville
March 24
(Charlottesville, VA, January 13, 2004) . . . The Center for the Book at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities is pleased to announce that acclaimed author and writer-host of Public Radio’s “Prairie Home Companion,” Garrison Keillor, will participate in a free event during the tenth annual Virginia Festival of the Book (VABook!) on March 24 at 8 p.m. at the Charlottesville Performing Arts Center. Keillor is the author of Lake Wobegon Days, The Book of Guys, The Old Man Who Loved Cheese, and his most recent novel Love Me.
Love Me follows writer Larry Wyler as he leaves his wife and home in Minnesota to discover fame and fortune in New York. Soon after the success of Wyler’s first novel, he leaves for the city only to find himself in an anonymous position issuing advice under the pen name “Mr. Blue” for The New Yorker. This fictional story of success and misfortune mimics Keillor’s career, as he is a Minnesotan advice columnist for Salon magazine with the same pen name.
Garrison Keillor, author of numerous books for children and adults, has hosted the Saturday evening live radio variety show “Prairie Home Companion” for the past thirty years--where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. In 1994, he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
As with all festival headline events, admission is free but seating is limited. One thousand tickets will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis on March 24 beginning at 7 p.m. before the 8 p.m. event. There is no pre-registered seating.
The Virginia Festival of the Book, produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, includes five days of literary events that are free and open to the public in venues around Charlottesville. VABook! 2004 will feature authors Michael Chabon, Michael Ondaatje, Clyde Edgerton, Alev Lytle Croutier, Alexander McCall-Smith, Kaye Gibbons, Joy Harjo, and Edward P. Jones, among hundreds of others.
For more information, visit www.vabook.org or call (434) 924-6890.
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