Garrison Keillor to Appear at Berkshire WordFest

Keynote Speaker for The Mount July 24

By: Ariel Petrova - Jun 30, 2010

Garrison Keillor will be a keynote speaker and honoree at the first annual literary festival of Edith Wharton's The Mount, Berkshire WordFest. The popular host and writer of NPR programs A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac, as well as the author of more than a dozen books, Keillor will speak at The Mount’s Festival Fundraiser, a dinner event held at Seven Hills Inn in Lenox, Mass., on Saturday, July 24. During the event, Keillor will be honored with The Mount’s 2010 Henry James Award, designed to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to American culture.

Tickets start at $250. They may be purchased by calling The Mount’s ticket line, (413) 551-5113. Berkshire WordFest events range in price from free to $250; all event and schedule information is available at www.EdithWharton.org  (click on Berkshire WordFest).

“We couldn’t be more pleased,” said Susan Wissler, Executive Director. “Garrison Keillor is beloved in the Berkshires, as elsewhere, and his participation in our first annual literary festival is a great honor for The Mount. We are especially delighted to have the opportunity to bestow our 2010 Henry James Award to Mr. Keillor in person. An extraordinarily effective champion of the spoken and written word, Mr. Keillor has also made a lasting contribution to American culture by showing us to ourselves through story, music, and humor.”

Garrison Keillor’s appearance caps off an inaugural festival line-up of 21 authors of national note and eight Berkshire-based poets. Speakers include:

* Kurt Andersen, novelist and host of WNYC’s Studio 360
* Roy Blount Jr., humorist and a panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!
* Elizabeth Brundage, novelist
* Frank Delaney, novelist and BBC culture correspondent
* Tad Friend, New Yorker staff writer
* John Hockenberry, journalist/foreign correspondent and co-host of WNYC’s The Takeaway
* Garrison Keillor, host and writer of NPR programs A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac
* Katy Lederer, poet and memoirist
* Elinor Lipman, novelist
* Martha McPhee, novelist
* Laura Miller, Salon.com co-founder and books columnist
* Susan Orlean, New Yorker staff writer
* Francine Prose, novelist, non-fiction writer, and former PEN American Center president, and recipient of the 2010 Edith Wharton Achievement Award
* Ruth Reichl, memoirist and former Gourmet magazine editor-in-chief
* Katie Roiphe, journalist and cultural critic
* Elizabeth Samet, professor of literature at West Point
* Dani Shapiro, novelist and memoirist
* Jim Shepard, novelist and short story writer
* Tatjana Soli, novelist and short story writer
* Judith Thurman, New Yorker staff writer
* Simon Winchester, non-fiction writer

Also appearing are Berkshire-based poets Deborah Bernhardt, Abbot Culter, Peter Filkins, Hannah Fries, Michelle Gillett, Leslie Harrison, Lawrence Raab, and Tess Taylor.

More information about all speakers is available at www.EdithWharton.org .