Rochester Arts & Lectures' Roster

Rochester Arts & Lectures presents the most sought-after, award-winning speakers to Rochester audiences.

To date, our guest speakers have received:

2 Nobel Prizes
1 Jerusalem Prize
    (Israel’s only international literary award)
30 Pulitzer Prizes
1 Grammy Award
8 PEN Faulkner Awards
6 Emmy Awards
14 National Book Awards
3 Peabody Awards
    (for Excellence in Broadcast media)
8 Tony Awards
4 Booker Prizes
3 Caldecott Medals
1 National Humanities Medal
1 Life Achievement Award - Crime
    Writers’ Association

1989-1990
Incomparable, inaugural poet Maya Angelou; National Book Award-winning children’s advocate Jonathan Kozol; Bestselling columnist, novelist and food writer Calvin Trillin; Harvard Professor of zoology and geology, National Book Award-winning author Stephen Jay Gould

1990-1991
Bestselling (husband-and-wife) authors Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich; Caldecott Medalist, architecture and science illustrator David Macaulay (The Way Things Work); Acclaimed Chilean novelist and magic realist Isabel Allende; Investigative reporter and New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh; Humorist, essayist and novelist Fran Lebowitz

1991-1992
Nobel Prize recipient, South African novelist Nadine Gordimer; Two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award-winning American icon John Updike; Nobel Prize-winning poet and essayist Derek Walcott; Prolific, National Book Award-winning novelist Joyce Carol Oates; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Oscar Hijuelos; Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning – and three-time Tony Award-winning – playwright Edward Albee (A Delicate Balance; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

1992-1993
Bestselling memoirist Lorene Cary (Black Ice);
Acclaimed novelist, essayist, and short story writer Carlos Fuentes; Memoirist, short story master, three-time O. Henry Award-winner, and PEN Faulkner Award-winning author Tobias Wolff (This Boy’s Life); Neurologist, neuropsychiatrist and bestselling author Richard Restak (The Brain); Bestselling political commentator Molly Ivins; Pulitzer Prize-winning (and National Book Award-winning) novelist and memoirist William Styron (Sophie’s Choice; The Confessions of Nat Turner; Darkness Visible)

1993-1994
Incomparable, inaugural poet Maya Angelou; Bestselling science author James Gleick (Genius; Chaos); Acclaimed contemporary American Poet Li-Young Lee; Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural technology writer and biographer Tracy Kidder (The Soul of a New Machine; Old Friends); Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres); Prolific, Booker Prize-winning novelist and essayist Margaret Atwood

1994-1995
Coloratura soprano and New York City Opera Director Beverly Sills; Bestselling intellectual sensualist and naturalist Diane Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses); Booker Prize-winning novelist Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient); Bestselling Latin American novelist Julia Alvarez (How the García Girls Lost Their Accents; In the Time of the Butterflies); Renowned African-American scholar and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Master of contemporary American literature Kurt Vonnegut

1995-1996
Pulitzer Prize-winning Presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin (No Ordinary Time); Native American-Filipino-Jewish author/playwright/essayist Greg Sarris (Watermelon Nights; Grand Avenue); Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and “Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau; Acclaimed actor, playwright, and novelist Timothy Findley; Recipient of the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal, National Book Award-winner, and PEN Faulkner recipient, E.L. Doctorow; Popular novelist Sue Miller (The Good Mother; Family Pictures)

1996-1997
Recipient of six Emmys, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, and two Peabody Awards – actress, producer, writer, and comedienne extraordinaire Lily Tomlin; PEN Faulkner Award-winning novelist David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars); Nationally-syndicated columnist and political commentator Elizabeth Drew; Two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award recipient, playwright August Wilson (Fences; The Piano Lesson); Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Carol Shields (The Stone Diaries; Larry’s Party); Art and culture historian; New Yorker art critic Simon Schama

1997-1998
New Yorker staff writer and film critic David Denby (Great Books); Pulitzer Prize-winning memoirist Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes; ‘Tis); National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross; Bestselling novelist Mary Gordon (Final Payments; The Company of Women); Pulitzer Prize-winning/PEN Faulkner-award-winning novelist Richard Ford (Independence Day); Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory)

1998-1999
Renowned civil rights attorney and Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder Morris Dees; Two-time recipient of the PEN Faulkner Award for Fiction John Edgar Wideman (Yesterday; Philadelphia Fire); National bestselling novelist and short story writer Jill McCorkle (Tending to Virginia; Carolina Moon); Internationally renowned Harvard anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis; Popular novelist and short story writer Elizabeth McCracken (Niagara Falls All Over Again; The Giant’s House); Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein (The Heidi Chronicles)

1999-2000
Bestselling memoirist/travel writer Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun; Bella Tuscany); Bestselling novelist and short story writer Elinor Lipman (Isabel’s Bed; The Inn at Lake Devine); Award-winning novelist Russell Banks (The Sweet Hereafter; Cloudsplitter); Internationally best-selling novelist Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha); Librarian of Congress Emeritus and nationally acclaimed historian Daniel J. Boorstin; Architecture and urban design expert Witold Rybczynski (The Most Beautiful House in the World)

2000-2001
Uncontested master of crime and western novels Elmore Leonard; Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New Yorker editor David Remnick (Lenin's Tomb; King of the World); Famed artist, architect, and Vietnam Veterans Memorial creator Maya Lin; Beloved, bestselling novelist Wally Lamb (She’s Come Undone; I Know This Much Is True); Jerusalem Prize recipient, National Book Award-winner, novelist, essayist, and playwright, Susan Sontag; Nationally recognized poet Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)

2001-2002
Pulitzer Prize-winning, PEN Faulkner Award-winning novelist Michael Cunningham (The Hours; A Home at the End of the World); MIT professor and acclaimed author of eleven novels of contemporary India, Anita Desai (Baumgartner’s Bombay; Journey to Ithaca); Popular, humorous travel writer Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods; In A Sunburned Country; Bill Bryson’s African Diary); Environmental defender and Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; Bestselling memoirist and novelist Anchee Min (Becoming Madame Mao; Empress Orchid); Internationally bestselling author and former New York Times science reporter Dava Sobel (Longitude; Galileo’s Daughter)

2002-2003
National Book Award recipient Barry Lopez (Arctic Dreams; About This Life); “Literary Forensics Expert” and Shakespearean scholar Don Foster (Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous);
PEN Faulkner Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ann Patchett (Bel Canto; The Magician’s Assistant); Two-time Tony Award recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright Tony Kushner; Two-time recipient of the Booker Prize, Australian novelist; Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda; True History of the Kelly Gang); Acclaimed New Yorker writer and portraitist Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief; The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup)

2003-2004
Nationally acclaimed poet Donald Hall (Without; The Painted Bed); Bestselling novelist Elizabeth Berg (Talk Before Sleep; What We Keep); Two-time Caldecott Medal-winner, author-illustrator David Wiesner (Tuesday; The Three Pigs); Dean of American political biography, two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award recipient Robert Caro (Master of the Senate; The Power Broker); National Book Award-winning novelist Julia Glass (Three Junes); Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay; Wonder Boys)

2004-2005
New Yorker cultural reporter and bestselling memoirist Adam Gopnik (Paris to the Moon); bibliophile and nationally acclaimed authority on books Nicholas Basbanes (A Gentle Madness; Patience & Fortitude; A Splendor of Letters); bestselling intellectual sensualist Diane Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses; An Alchemy of Mind); bestselling novelist Jeanne Ray (Julie and Romeo; Eat Cake); National Book Award-winning novelist Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections; How to be Alone); Nabokov scholar and bestselling memoirist Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran).

2005-2006
Bestselling novelist Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner); internationally bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series); New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz; artist and bestselling novelist Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife, The Three Incestuous Sisters); National Yiddish Book Center Founder and memoirist Aaron Lansky (Outwitting History); and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo (Empire Falls, The Risk Pool).

2006-2007
Internationally bestselling author Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club; Bonesetter’s Daughter; Saving Fish from Drowning); former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins (Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes; Sailing Alone Around the Room; Nine Horses); bestselling journalist Jonathan Harr (A Civil Action; The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece); bestselling author Silas House (A Parchment of Leaves; Clay’s Quilt; The Coal Tattoo); Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides; Middlesex); bestselling novelist and social activist Sara Paretsky (Fire Sale; Total Recall; Hard Time).

2007-2008
Bestselling young adult novelist Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler) (A Series of Unfortunate Events); Pulitzer Prize-winning, National Book Award-winning poet and former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass (Field Guide, Praise, Human Wishes, Twentieth Century Pleasures); bestselling novelist Claire Messud (The Emperor’s Children, The Last Life, When the World Was Steady); book designer extraordinaire and bestselling novelist Chip Kidd (The Cheese Monkeys, The Learners); Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan; bestselling novelist Allegra Goodman (The Family Markowitz, Paradise Park, Intuition).

Mini Series

1992 New American Voices
Peabody Award-winning journalist and editor Richard Rodriguez (Hunger of Memory); Former New York Times editor and author Eva Hoffman (Lost in Translation); Novelist and short story writer Gish Jen (Typical American); Essayist and short story writer Bharati Mukherjee (Jasmine)

1994 Southern Accents
Bestselling novelist Kaye Gibbons (Charms for the Easy Life; On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon); Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler (A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain); Bestselling novelist Dori Sanders (Clover; Her Own Place); Acclaimed novelist Clyde Edgerton (Killer Diller; In Memory of Junior)

1995 Monday Means Murder!
Recipient of The Crime Writers Association’s Life Achievement award Lawrence Block; Bestselling novelist and mystery writer Valerie Wilson Wesley; Bestselling novelist, columnist, and investigative journalist Carl Hiaasen; Joyce Carol Oates (aka Rosamond Smith) (Lives of the Twins; Soul/Mate); Popular mystery writer and creator of the “Amsterdam Cops” series Janwillem van de Wetering

Special Events
1993 American legend – Two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award-winning novelist, playwright, and poet – Norman Mailer (The Armies of the Night; The Executioner’s Song)

1997 Bestselling novelist, memoirist, and essayist Anne Lamott (Crooked Little Heart; Bird by Bird; Operating Instructions)

2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning, National Book Award-winning novelist and essayist Alice Walker (The Color Purple; Possessing the Secret of Joy)

Margaret Atwood photo by Jess Atwood Gibson
Morris Dees photo by Penny Weaver
Susan Sontag photo by Annie Leibovitz