Pen Pals, the phenomenally successful author lecture series, showcases five outstanding writers each year. Pen Pals offers people a rare opportunity to spend some time with their favorite authors. You are entertained with personal anecdotes, life stories, and the kind of insight you just can’t get from a dust jacket bio. Our series began in 1997 and since then has brought these exceptional writers to the Twin Cities.

2012
Salman Rushdie – Alice Kaplan – Roz Chast – Dennis Lehane – Armistead Maupin

2011
Jhumpa Lahiri – Michael Ondaatje – Wallace Shawn – Brian Greene – Arthur Phillips

2010
Lorna Landvik – Bill Bryson – Ann Patchett – Mark Doty – Dave Eggers

2009
Erik Larson – Azar Nafisi – Michael Chabon – William Kent Krueger – Sarah Vowell

2008
Michael Beschloss – Alexandra Fuller – Richard Russo – Tony Kushner – Tim O’Brien

2007
Kaye Gibbons – Tracy Kidder – Daniel Handler – Yann Martel – Robert Alexander

2006
Amy Tan – David McCullough – Vince Flynn – Rick Bragg – Bruce Feiler

2005
Donald Hall – Isabel Allende – Richard Ford – Alexander McCall Smith – Khaled Hosseini

2004
Naomi Shihab Nye – Joyce Carol Oates – Anna Deavere Smith – Frances Mayes – Stephen L. Carter

2003
Billy Collins – Calvin Trillin – David Halberstam – Alice Sebold – Edward Albee

2002
Robert Pinsky – Dave Barry – William Styron – Wendy Wasserstein – Anne Lamott

2001
Ernest Gaines – Jane Hamilton – Anne Fadiman – John Updike – Susan Sontag

2000
Russell Banks – Ray Bradbury – Rebecca Wells – Scott Turow – Margaret Atwood

1999
Anna Quindlen – David McCullough – Molly Ivins – Wally Lamb – Tom Wolfe

1998
Frank McCourt – Pat Conroy – Mary Higgins Clark – Louise Erdrich – Ursula Hegi

1997
Doris Kearns Goodwin – Amy Tan