Carl Hiaasen

in conversation with

Carolyn Kellogg

Tuesday, August 17

8pm

Track 16 Gallery, Bergamot Station

2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg. C-1

Santa Monica, CA

“Sick, twisted, depraved… These words describe both South Florida and Carl Hiaasen, which is why nobody writes about Miami the way he does.”

– Dave Barry

Carl Hiaasen—award-winning journalist, columnist for the Miami Herald, and bestselling novelist—has won international acclaim for the relentless skewering of his beloved Florida and its attendant eccentricities.  His fiction has been likened to that of a modern-day Mark Twain, while his columns for the Herald are hailed by citizens and fellow journalists (he was just awarded the 2010 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists).  In his columns and novels, he’s taken on telemarketers, tourists, land developers, politicians, and a litany of others in his quest to expose the underbelly of society and politics.  Now, with STAR ISLAND, we can add pop stars and paparazzi to that list.

Meet 22-year-old pop star Cherry Pye, attempting a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster.  Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia, who portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too intoxicated to be in public. When Ann-as-Cherry is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by an obsessed paparazzo, Cherry’s handlers must rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public—and from Cherry herself.  But complications abound in cameos that Hiaasen fans will love—from Ann’s biggest admirer and would-be rescuer, Skink, the crazed former governor of Florida to Cherry’s particularly ill-tempered new bodyguard, Chemo, a former hitman equipped with a weed-whacker on his prothestic arm that he isn’t afraid to use.

Visit his website for more information:  www.carlhiaasen.com

Carolyn Kellogg, a Los Angeles Times staff writer, writes Jacket Copy, the paper’s book blog. She is on the board of the National Book Critics Circle, has an MFA in fiction, teaches at UCLA Extension and has been heard on NPR. Few people know that she was born in Tallahassee, Florida.

Tickets:

$20 General Admission

$35 General Admission including Carl Hiaasen’s book

$95 Reserved Seating, Carl Hiaasen’s book 
and reception before event, 6:30-7:30pm

GET TICKETS

Net proceeds from this event will benefit the wonderful work of Reading to Kids, a grassroots organization dedicated to inspiring underserved children in Los Angeles with a love of reading. They organizes reading clubs on the second Saturday of every month at seven Los Angeles elementary schools.  Pairs of volunteers read aloud to small groups of children, while their parents receive training on how to encourage their children to read at home.  Kids, parents, teachers, and school libraries receive book donations at the end of the Reading Clubs. To volunteer or learn more, visit: www.readingtokids.org

In addition, the Pearson Foundation through our We Give Books initiative will donate five children’s books for each ticket purchased to Reading to Kids. More information on We Give Books, visit: www.wegivebooks.org.

Scott Turow
in conversation with
Dustin Hoffman

June 28, 2010, 8pm

Zipper Hall
The Colburn School
200 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90012

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Scott Turow’s new novel, Innocent, is a sequel to his first novel, Presumed Innocent. He is the author of eight bestselling works of fiction, and two nonfiction books that include One L, which describes his experience as a first-year law student. Turow’s books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, have sold more than twenty-five million copies worldwide, and have been adopted for film and television. He also frequently contributes essays and op-ed pieces to such publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Playboy, and The Atlantic.

More than twenty years after Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto went head-to-head in the shattering murder trial of Presumed Innocent, the men are pitted against each other once again in a riveting psychological match. When Sabich, now over sixty years old and the chief judge of an appellate court, finds his wife, Barbara, dead under mysterious circumstances, Molto accuses him of murder for the second time, setting into motion a trial that is vintage Turow—the courtroom at its most taut and explosive.

With his characteristic insight into both the dark truths of the human psyche and the dense intricacies of the criminal justice system, Scott Turow proves once again that some books simply compel us to read late into the night, desperate to know who did it.

“Scott Turow’s new novel is the dedicated fiction-reader’s version of El Dorado: a driving, unputdownable courtroom drama/murder mystery that is also a literary treasure, written in language that sparkles with clarity and resonates with honest character insight. I came away feeling amazed and fulfilled, as we only do when we read novelists at the height of their powers. Put this on your don’t-miss-list.” — Stephen King

Tickets:

$25 General Admission

$40 General Admission including Scott Turow’s book

$95 Reserved Seating, Scott Turow’s book
and reception before event, 6:30-7:30pm

GET TICKETS

Net proceeds from this event will benefit the wonderful work of 826LA. 826LA is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. For more information on 826LA, visit www.826LA.org.

In addition, the Pearson Foundation through our We Give Books initiative will donate five children’s books for each ticket purchased to 826LA. For more information on We Give Books, visit: www.wegivebooks.org.