Aspen, CO. July 26, 2010 – The Aspen Writers’ Foundation (AWF), a program of the Aspen Institute, presents novelist Mona Simpson in conversation with Walter Isaacson. Ms. Simpson will appear at the Institute to discuss her new book, My Hollwood on Friday, August 13 from 5:00-6:00 pm in the Paepcke Auditorium and will be followed by a book signing. Tickets are on sale through the Wheeler Opera House at www.aspenshowtickets.com or by calling 970-920-5770.
Mona Simpson was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin and moved to Los Angeles as a young teenager. Her father was a recent immigrant from Syria and her mother was the daughter of a mink farmer and the first person in her family to attend college. Simpson went to UC Berkeley, where she studied poetry. She worked as a journalist before moving to New York to attend Columbia University’s MFA program. During graduate school, she published her first short stories in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review and Mademoiselle. She remained in New York to work as an editor at The Paris Review for five years while finishing her first novel, Anywhere But Here. After that, she wrote The Lost Father, A Regular Guy and Off Keck Road.
Her work has been awarded several prizes: a Whiting Prize, a Guggenheim, a grant from the NEA, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Lila Wallace Readers Digest Prize, a Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, a Pen Faulkner finalist, and most recently a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Ms. Simpson worked for 10 years on My Hollywood. “It’s the book that took me too long because it meant too much to me,” she said. She lives in Santa Monica with her two children and their dog Bartelby.
The Aspen Writers’ Foundation, Colorado’s oldest nonprofit literary organization and a program of the Aspen Institute, has been bringing readers and writers together since 1976. The organization’s mission is to provide programs that encourage writers in their craft and readers in their appreciation of literature. Through its repertoire of ten year-round programs and projects, the Aspen Writers’ Foundation annually serves 100,000-plus literary enthusiasts of all ages.
The Aspen Institute mission is twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues. The Aspen Institute does this primarily in four ways: seminars, young-leader fellowships around the globe, policy programs, and public conferences and events. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It also has an international network of partners.
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