Garrison Keillor, the host of public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion, will read from his new book and answer audience questions during a WILL fundraising lunch at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, May 7th, at Urbana’s Frasca Field.
Keillor will be signing his book, The Keillor Reader. Copies will be available for purchase at the event, which takes place inside a hangar full of vintage airplanes and cars.
To get a ticket to the event, including a box lunch, make a $50 gift to WILL by visiting will.illinois.edu/garrisonkeillor or calling 217-333-7300.
The Keillor Reader brings together the full range of his work: monologues from A Prairie Home Companion, stories from The New Yorker and The Atlantic, excerpts from novels, and newspaper columns. With an extensive introduction and headnotes, photographs, and memorabilia, the book also presents pieces never before published, including the essays “Cheerfulness” and “What We Have Learned So Far.”
Keillor — a storyteller, sometime comedian, essayist, newspaper columnist, screenwriter, poet — has hosted A Prairie Home Companion in St. Paul, Minn., since 1974. Today, some 4 million listeners on more than 600 public radio stations coast to coast and beyond tune in to the show each week. Keillor has been honored with Grammy, ACE, and George Foster Peabody awards, the National Humanities Medal, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In addition to The Keillor Reader, his many books include Lake Wobegon Days, The Book of Guys, Pilgrims: A Wobegon Romance, and Guy Noir and the Straight Skinny. He is the host of the daily program The Writer’s Almanac and the editor of several anthologies of poetry.
Tickets to the event will be mailed when payment is received. Frasca Field is at 1402 Airport Rd., Urbana.