Library Foundation

Previous Pen Pals Seasons

The Library Foundation's 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.

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