January 19, 2005
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents An Evening with Garrison Keillor, the best-selling author and the creator of A Prairie Home Companion, at the Arlington Theatre

Summary Facts:

• Garrison Keillor
• An evening of stories, songs, wit and surprises
• Keillor is the creator/host of the radio favorite A Prairie Home Companion
• Monday, February 28 / 8 pm
• Arlington Theatre, 1317 State Street
• General public: $35 / UCSB students: $20
• Tickets/Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or the Arlington Ticket Agency at (805) 963-4408

Beloved creator of A Prairie Home Companion Garrison Keillor will regale the crowd with his sly wit, enchanting stories, charming songs and other surprises on Monday, February 28 at 8 pm at the Arlington Theatre, 1317 State Street, Santa Barbara. Each week more than 2.6 million listeners tune in to Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on over 450 public radio stations. Keillor has won numerous awards including a Grammy for his recording of Lake Wobegon Days, two CableAce Awards and a Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications in 1994.

Keillor is the author of fifteen books that have sold over five million copies in the U.S., including The New York Times bestsellers Wobegon Boy, Lake Wobegon Days and Leaving Home. His work consistently delineates “a line delicate as a cobweb between satire and sentiment” (Cleveland Plain Dealer).

His two most recent publications are Love Me and Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America. Love Me, his first non-Wobegon book of fiction since 1993’s The Book of Guys, charts the rise and fall of an ambitious author. USA Today wrote that Love Me is “a droll literary spoof wrapped in a sweet love story, as wise as it is silly.” Homegrown Democrat was Keillor’s contribution to 2004’s political discussion, an inspiring love letter to liberalism, John F. Kennedy, the University of Minnesota, and the yellow-dog Democrat city of St. Paul. Publishers Weekly called the book “a Menckenesque rant...Prairie Home Companion meets Air America.”

Born and raised in Minnesota, Keillor began his radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion in 1974 after writing a piece on the Grand Ole Opry for The New Yorker. The show brings together skits about the mythical town of Lake Wobegon—“where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”—with ads for quirky imaginary products (The Ketchup Advisory Board) and with musicians (Chet Atkins) often not heard elsewhere on the radio. Keillor and the show took a sabbatical in 1987, but in 1989 he returned to the airwaves with the American Radio Company of the Air, broadcast from New York City. Finally in 1992, Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion returned to St. Paul, Minnesota, from where the show still originates. (For more information on A Prairie Home Companion, check its web site at phc.mpr.org)

The Chicago Tribune claims, “Keillor’s great strength as a writer is to make the ordinary extraordinary.” His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including National Geographic, Time and The New Yorker. From 1999-2001 he wrote a weekly advice column, Mr. Blue, for Salon.com. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Keillor lives in St. Paul with his wife, classical musician Jenny Lind Nilsson.

Keillor has said, “Writing is pure entrepreneurship and a great way of life. And then, if you do a radio show every Saturday, you have a built-in social life. So it’s a pretty good deal.”

In UCSB Arts & Lectures’ on-going effort to make events accessible to all who wish to enjoy them, this event will be signed. American Sign Language interpretation is made possible by the California Arts Council in collaboration with the National Arts and Disability Center and by the Santa Barbara Foundation’s Access Theatre Endowment Fund.

Courtesy of Borders, pre-signed copies of books by Garrison Keillor will be available for purchase at the event.

Garrison Keillor is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. Tickets for the event are $35 for the general public and $20 for UCSB students, who must show valid ID when purchasing tickets and at the door. Tickets are on sale now and can also be purchased at the door, if still available. For tickets or more information call the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office at (805) 893-3535, the Arlington Ticket Agency at (805) 963-4408.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.