PRESS CONTACT:
Richard W. Hatter, (212) 687-4470
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March
1, 2005
JOHN SIMON GUGGENHEIM
MEMORIAL FOUNDATION
CELEBRATES
80th
ANNIVERSARY
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation will celebrate its 80th
anniversary with a literary reading featuring twenty-two of
America’s most important writers, all of whom are Guggenheim
Fellows. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held
at the Great Hall of the Cooper Union on Thursday, March 31st,
beginning at 7:00 p.m. This will be the first time in the history of
the Foundation that a reading by Fellows is being offered to the
general public.
The roster of illustrious readers will include playwrights and
performance artists, such as Eric Bogosian (Drinking in America),
Karen Finley (Return of the
Chocolate-Smeared Woman),
and Wendy Wasserstein (The Heidi
Chronicles). It will
highlight some of our most important prose
writers, such as Shirley Hazzard (The
Great Fire), Oscar Hijuelos (The
Mambo Kings), Jamaica Kincaid
(Autobiography
of My Mother), Jhumpa Lahiri (The
Namesake), Chang-Rae Lee (A
Gesture Life), Joyce Carol
Oates (We
Were the Mulvaneys), and
Grace
Paley (The
Collected Stories).
It will feature some of our most valuable poets, such as Billy Collins (Sailing Alone Around the
Room),
Galway Kinnell (A New Selected Poems),
and Sharon Olds (Strike Sparks).
The poet Edward Hirsch (Lay Back the
Darkness), who is president
of the Foundation, will act as
master of ceremonies.
Since 1925, the Foundation has earned an enviable reputation for
identifying exceptionally gifted men and women whose contribution to
our nation's educational and cultural well_being has been profound. The
distinguished critic Alfred Kazin echoed these sentiments: "The
Guggenheim Foundation has by its support of the individual and by its
concern with talent done more for American thought, learning, and art
than any other foundation in the United States." There is unusually
persuasive evidence to support these comments on the Foundation's
record of identifying and supporting talented individuals. Over 85
Fellows have gone on to win the Nobel Prize, while nearly 200 have been
awarded Pulitzer Prizes.
Over the years, the Foundation has supported, at various stages in
their careers, nearly 15,500 scientists, scholars, and creative artists
with grants totaling over $230 million. Please help us spread the word
about this ground-breaking event.
Additional
Readers: Jonathan Ames (The Extra Man);
Nicholas Christopher
(Crossing the Equator: New and
Selected Poems); Mary Gordon
(Pearl);
Jessica Hagedorn (Dogeaters);
Mary
Karr (The Liar’s Club);
Pat Oleszko (Don’t
Touch
Me
Here); Gerald Stern (American
Sonnets); and Edmund White
(The Married Man).
Website:
http://www.gf.org