Jane Smiley to headline Friends of the U of M Libraries annual dinner

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (04/19/2012) —Pulitzer-prize winning author and Dickens biographer Jane Smiley will appear at the annual dinner of the Friends of the University of Minnesota Libraries on Thursday, May 10 at McNamara Alumni Center, 200 Oak Street S.E., Minneapolis. The evening, billed as a celebration of Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday, begins with a 5:30 p.m. reception followed by dinner and a program featuring Smiley. Books will be available for sale and signing courtesy of the University of Minnesota Bookstores.

Tickets, which cost $46 for members of the Friends of the University of Minnesota Libraries and $56 for the general public, should be purchased by May 3 at the Northrop Ticket Office: http://z.umn.edu/smiley or 612-624-2345.

Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels including "Moo" and "A Thousand Acres," which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Her essays have been published in "Vogue," "The New Yorker," "Harper’s," "The New York Times Magazine," "The Nation," and others. She is also the author of the nonfiction books "A Year at the Races," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel," and a biography of Charles Dickens. In 2001, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2006 she received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature.