Mount Auburn Hospital presents Pink Pages, an evening featuring renowned author Alice Hoffman to benefit the hospital’s Hoffman Breast Center on Monday, May 22, 2017 beginning at 6 p.m. at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge.
The evening will feature readings and anecdotes from popular best-selling authors Diane Ackerman, David Baldacci, Geraldine Brooks, Andre Dubus, III, Elin Hilderbrand, Ann Hood and ZZ Packer. Emmy Award-winning arts and entertainment critic, advocate, motivational speaker, and cancer crusader Joyce Kulhawik will serve as the evening’s emcee.
A bit about the evening’s participants:
Alice Hoffman has been called “America’s literary heir to the Brothers Grimm” and her luminous “fables of the everyday” have enchanted readers since the publication of her first novel, Property Of, in 1977. Her novel, Dovekeepers, spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was adapted as a television miniseries in 2015.Hoffman has written over thirty books including Practical Magic and Aquamarine, both of which were made into major motion pictures, as well as Oprah Book Club selection, Here on Earth. Her work has been published in more than twenty translations and in more than one hundred foreign editions. Additionally, her book, Survival Lessons, details the challenges and triumphs of facing death and living life as a cancer survivor. Hoffman’s latest novel,Faithful, was not only a New York Times bestseller but also the #1 Indie Next Pick and Library Reads Pick for November 2016.
Diane Ackerman wrote the New York Times bestseller and Orion Book Award winner, The Zookeeper’s Wife, which has been turned into the recently released major motion picture staring Jessica Chastain. Ackerman has also hosted a five-part Nova miniseries on PBS called Mystery of the Senses, based on her book A Natural History of the Senses. For many decades her essays & poems about nature and human behavior have been published in acclaimed journals such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, American Scholar, Smithsonian, and National Geographic. Ackerman has written fourteen non-fiction books, seven books of poetry, and three children’s books. Her latest novel The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us was published in 2014.
David Baldacci has been writing since childhood and released his first novel, Absolute Power, in 1996. One year later, the book was adapted into the major motion picture of the same name, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. In 2013, his novel, Wish You Well, was adapted into a theatrical family movie for which he wrote the screenplay. That same year, he served as consulting producer for the TNT television show, King & Maxwell, which was based on the characters from his own King & Maxwell crime novel series. All 33 of Baldacci’s novels are national and international bestsellers, and have been translated into over 45 languages and sold in over 80 counties. He has also written five children’s books and established the Wish You Well Foundation with his wife to promote literacy in the United States. His latest novel The Fix is set to be released on April 18th.
Geraldine Brooks is a 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner, New York Times bestseller, and three time international bestseller. She started her career as a feature writer for The Sydney Morning Herald, later transitioning to foreign correspondence for The Wall Street Journal, where she won the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War. Brooks’ first novel, Year of Wonders, became an international bestseller and is currently optioned for a major motion picture, starring English actor Andrew Lincoln. Brooks has also written three non-fiction books titled Nine Parts of Desire, Foreign Correspondence, and The Idea of Home. Her latest novel The Secret Chordwas published in 2015.
Andre Dubus III is a New York Times bestselling author with his most recent book, Dirty Love, listed as a New York Times “Notable Book”, a New York Times “Editor’s Choice”, and a 2013 “Notable Fiction” choice from The Washington Post. His novel, House of Sand and Fog, was turned into a major motion picture released in 2003 by DreamWorks starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. Dubus’ six books are international bestsellers, translated into over 25 languages.
Elin Hilderbrand is a New York Times bestselling author with nine of her twenty novels featured on the list. After honing her skills as a teaching and writing fellow at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Hilderbrand settled down in Nantucket, Massachusetts – the setting of most of her novels. Her latest work, Here’s to Us, is no exception as it tells an emotional and heartwarming story about grief and finding solace. In 2014, Hilderbrand started the website Mamastrong.com to share her battle with breast cancer, as well as to allow other mothers to share theirs.
Ann Hood is the best-selling author of An Italian Wife, The Red Thread, The Knitting Circle, Comfort: A Journey through Grief, and her latest The Book That Matters Most among other works. She started her career as a flight attendant for TWA writing her first novel Somewhere off the Coast of Maine between flights later transitioning to writing full time. Over fifteen novels, numerous essays and short stories later, Hood is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award, a Best American Food Writing Award, a Best American Travel Writing Award, and the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction.
ZZ Packer is the celebrated author of the New York Times Notable Book and The Today Show Book Club selection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, a collection of short stories. She was first published in Seventeen Magazineat the age of nineteen with her short stories later being featured in Best American Short Stories twice. In 2005, she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction and in 2010, she was selected to be featured in The New Yorker magazine’s “20 under 40” issue.
The American Repertory Theater is located at 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA. The event will take place on Monday, May 22nd at 6:00 pm. There will be a pre-reception with appetizers and drinks, and at the end of the evening the authors will be available to meet attendees and sign books.
All proceeds from Pink Pages will benefit the Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital. For more information and to buy tickets, please visit www.mountauburnhospital.org/giving/fundraising-events/pink-pages-event/ or call 617-499-5656.
About the Hoffman Breast Center
The Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital is named in honor of the Hoffman Family and novelist Alice Hoffman, whose vision, enthusiasm and generosity made it reality. The center is designed to provide educational resources and referrals for breast cancer patients. In this nurturing setting, patients and their families receive direction to appropriate resources, instruction in breast self-exam, guidance to the most effective courses of treatment and support at each step along the recovery and a healthy lifestyle. The Hoffman Breast Center continues to offer patients the latest resources and the most advanced technologies. It provides the full range of services including mammography imaging, breast ultrasound, ultrasound breast biopsies, stereotactic biopsies and breast MRIs.
Mount Auburn Hospital was founded in 1886. A teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, its mission is to deliver healthcare services in a personable, convenient and compassionate manner, with respect for the dignity of patients and their families.