September 3, 2003

Author Michael Cunningham Gives Free Lecture Oct. 9 at Boise State

Download this photo
300 DPI Print Photo

72 DPI Web Photo
 

Michael Cunningham, who won the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for The Hours, will speak at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 9, in the Student Union Jordan Ballroom at Boise State University as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series. Cunningham’s lecture, “Wrestling With a Genius: My Life and Virginia Woolf’s,” is free and the public is invited. No tickets are required. “Michael Cunningham is an internationally acclaimed writer who is at the peak of his literary and creative powers. We are very excited to bring him to Boise State,” said Helen Lojek, an English professor who is chair of the Distinguished Lecture Series Committee. Cunningham’s lecture is one of two major events on Oct. 9 at Boise State. Stand-up comedian and actor David Spade will perform later that night at The Pavilion, following a warm-up act at 8 p.m. For more information about purchasing tickets to Spade, call 426-1766. Cunningham has received widespread critical acclaim for The Hours, an homage to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, and for his earlier novels, Flesh and Blood and A Home at the End of the World. Cunningham’s novels have also been successfully adapted to the screen and stage; a film version of The Hours starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore won best actress for Kidman at the 2003 Academy Awards, and a theater adaptation of Flesh and Blood opened off Broadway last spring. A film version of A Home at the End of the World with Sissy Spacek and Colin Farrell is scheduled for a 2004 release. Cunningham, who lives in New York City, is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Michener Fellowship from the University of Iowa. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Redbook, Esquire, The Paris Review and many other publications. Cunningham received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Stanford University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. The student-funded Distinguished Lecture Series brings to campus speakers who have had a significant impact in politics, the arts or the sciences. The most recent speaker was former president of Poland and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa. On April 14, 2004, the series presents Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson, considered one of the world’s greatest scientists and often called “the father of biodiversity.” Wilson has written 20 books, won two Pulitzer prizes, and discovered hundreds of new living species. For more information about the Distinguished Lecture Series, go to http://news.boisestate.edu/dls/. -end- Contact Helen Lojek English 208 426-1328 Media contact Janelle Brown communications and marketing 208 426-1790 Media contact Janelle Brown communications and marketing 208 426-1790