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The following programs are ahead for The Great Fenway Park Writers Series. It should be noted that events listed below are events presently scheduled. More events will be added as program opportunities occur. Please scroll down to view all of the event details, or you may use the navigation to access the event details you are looking for. To register for events please visit our registration page. Friday, July 10, 2009 The Boston Red Sox & The Great Fenway Park Writers Series Proudly Present: Bill Keller Executive Editor, The New York Times Author of and Speaking on: “The Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela" Friday, August 14, 2009 The Boston Red Sox & The Great Fenway Park Writers Series Proudly Present: Larry Tye The Greatly Esteemed Former Boston Globe Reporter Author of and Speaking on: “Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend" Thursday, September 10, 2009 The Boston Red Sox & The Great Fenway Park Writers Series Proudly Present: Robert Kuttner Co-Founder & Co-Editor, The American Prospect Author of and Speaking on: “Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency” Wednesday, September 30, 2009 The Boston Red Sox & The Great Fenway Park Writers Series Proudly Present: Mark Frost A Peabody & Emmy Award Winning Writer/Producer & Bestselling Novelist Author of and Speaking on: “Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America’s Pastime" Friday, July 10, 2009 The Boston Red Sox & The Great Fenway Park Writers Series Proudly Present: Bill Keller – Executive Editor, The New York Times Author of and Speaking on: “The Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela" 12-Noon Luncheon Absolut Clubhouse at Fenway Park (enter off Brookline Avenue) Friends of The Writers Series and Red Sox Season Ticket Holders, $50 All others, $60 (price includes an autographed copy of Mr. Keller`s book) Event Sponsor: To register for this event please click here. Bill Keller – Briefly Biographical Bill Keller became executive editor of The New York Times in July 2003. Before that Mr. Keller had been an Op-Ed columnist and senior writer for The New York Times Magazine as well as other areas of the newspaper since September 2001. Previously, he served as managing editor from 1997 until September 2001 after having been the newspaper’s foreign editor from June 1995 until 1997. He was the chief of The Times bureau in Johannesburg from April 1992 until May 1995. (He is the author of “The Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela,” published in January, 2008 by Kingfisher.) Before that Mr. Keller had been a Times correspondent in Moscow from December 1986 until October 1991, the last three years as the newspaper’s bureau chief. He won a Pulitzer Prize in March 1989 for his coverage of the Soviet Union. Mr. Keller joined The New York Times in April 1984 as a domestic correspondent based in the Washington bureau. Before coming to The Times, Mr. Keller had been a reporter for The Dallas Times Herald since October 1982. From 1980 until 1982, he was a reporter for the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report in Washington, covering lobbyists and interest groups. He was a reporter for The Portland Oregonian from July 1970 until March 1979. Mr. Keller graduated from Pomona College with a B.A. degree in 1970 and completed the Advanced Management Program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in July 2000. He is currently a member of the board of trustees of Pomona College. Mr. Keller is married to Emma Gilbey Keller. Ms. Gilbey Keller is a writer and author of, "The Comeback: Seven Stories of Women Who Went from Career to Family and Back Again,” published in September, 2008 by Bloomsbury, as well as a biography of Winnie Mandela. He has three children, Tom, Molly and Alice. Friday, August 14, 2009 The Boston Red Sox & The Great Fenway Park Writers Series Proudly Present: Larry Tye – The Greatly Esteemed Former Boston Globe Reporter Author of and Speaking on: “Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend" 12-Noon Luncheon Absolut Clubhouse at Fenway Park (enter off Brookline Avenue) Friends of The Writers Series and Red Sox Season Ticket Holders, $50 All Others, $65 (price includes an autographed copy of Mr. Tye`s book) To register for this event please click here. Leroy “Satchel” Paige was the most sensational pitcher ever to throw a baseball. During his years in the Negro Leagues he fine-tuned a pitch so scorching that catchers tried to soften the sting by cushioning their gloves with beefsteaks. His career stats — 2,000 wins, 250 shutouts, three victories on the same day — are so eye-popping they seem like misprints. But bigotry kept big league teams from signing him until he was forty-two, at which point he helped propel the Cleveland Indians to the World Series. Over a career that spanned four decades, Satchel pitched more baseballs, for more fans, in more ballparks, for more teams, than any player in history. Now there is a book worthy of this towering talent and boundary breaker. In "Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend," award-winning author and journalist Larry Tye untangles myth from truth about this flawed yet majestic man. Tye shows us Satchel as a self-promoter who selflessly fought to guarantee his teammates richer paydays. He was a Casanova with outsized appetites — and a devoted father who towered over baseball with his skill as well as his shrewdness. This new book also rewrites our history of the integration of baseball, with Satchel Paige in a starring role. While many dismissed him as a Stepin Fetchit, Satchel was something else entirely: a quiet subversive. He pitched so spectacularly that he drew the spotlight first to himself, then to his all-black Kansas City Monarchs, and inevitably to the Monarchs’ rookie second baseman Jackie Robinson. In the process, Satchel, even more than Jackie, opened the door for African Americans to the national pastime and forever changed his sport and this nation. Larry Tye – Biographical Brief Larry Tye runs the Boston-based Health Coverage Fellowship, which is designed to help the media do a better job covering critical health care issues. Each year it trains 10 medical journalists from newspapers, radio stations and TV outlets from across the country, on topics ranging from public health and mental health to insuring the uninsured. From 1986 to 2001, Tye was a reporter at the Boston Globe, where his primary beat was medicine. He also served as the Globe’s environmental reporter, roving national writer, investigative reporter, and sports writer. Before that he was the environmental reporter at the Courier-Journal in Louisville, and covered government and business at the Anniston Star in Alabama. Tye’s first book, "The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations," was published in 1998 by Crown. Spin was the subject of reports on CNN, CSPAN’s “Book Notes,” two shows on National Public Radio, and a multi-part BBC series on Bernays and his uncle, Sigmund Freud. His second book, "Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora," was published by Henry Holt in 2001. It looks at the renewal underway across the Jewish world, from Boston to Buenos Aires, Dusseldorf to Dnepropetrovsk deep in the Ukraine. In each community children are leading parents and grandparents back to their culture and faith, and in each Jews feel confident living in diverse societies while still embracing a core of beliefs and practices that define them as Jews. "Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class," was released in 2004 by Henry Holt. It explores the 100-year history of the black men who worked on George Pullman’s railroad sleeping cars, looking at how they launched the first successful black trade union, helped kick-start the Civil Rights movement, and gave birth to today’s African-American middle class. "Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy (Avery/Penguin, 2006)," was a collaboration with Kitty Dukakis, the former first lady of Massachusetts. It is partly a journalist’s first-person account of psychiatry’s most controversial treatment, partly a portrait of how that treatment gave one woman a new sense of control and hope after two decades of debilitating depression. Tye, who lives with his wife and two children outside of Boston, was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1993-94. He is now working on a biography of Superman for Random House. Thursday, September 10, 2009 The Boston Red Sox & The Great Fenway Park Writers Series Proudly Present: Robert Kuttner – Co-Founder & Co-Editor, The American Prospect Author of and Speaking on: “Obama’s Challenge: America`s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency” 12-Noon Luncheon The Great Bay Restaurant - Private Dining Room Hotel Commonwealth – 500 Commonwealth Avenue (Kenmore Station T Stop) Friends of the Writers Series – $40 (price includes an autographed copy of Mr. Kuttner’s book) Event Sponsor: To Register Click Here Robert Kuttner – Briefly Biographical Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, as well as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the think tank Demos. He was a longtime columnist for Business Week, and continues to write columns in the Boston Globe. "The Squandering of America," exploring the political roots of America`s narrowing prosperity and the systemic financial risks facing the U.S. economy, is his seventh book. The book was recently honored with the Sidney Hillman Journalism Award. He has begun work on a new book on trade, equality, efficiency, and the challenge of regulating global capitalism. Bob`s best-known earlier book is "Everything for Sale: the Virtues and Limits of Markets" (1997). The book received a page one review in the New York Times Book Review. Of it, the late economist Robert Heilbroner wrote, "I have never seen the market system better described, more intelligently appreciated, or more trenchantly criticized than in Everything for Sale." His previous books on economics and politics include; "The End of Laissez-Faire" (1991); "The Life of the Party" (1987); "The Economic Illusion" (1984); and "Revolt of the Haves" (1980). His magazine writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and Book Review, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, Dissent, Columbia Journalism Review, and Harvard Business Review. He has contributed major articles to The New England Journal of Medicine as a national policy correspondent. His other positions have included national staff writer on the Washington Post, chief investigator of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and economics editor of The New Republic. Robert Kuttner was educated at Oberlin, The London School of Economics, and the University of California at Berkeley. He has taught at Brandeis, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, and Harvard`s Institute of Politics. For four decades, Bob`s intellectual and political project has been to revive the politics and economics of harnessing capitalism to serve a broad public interest. He has pursued this ideal as a writer, editor, teacher, lecturer, commentator and public official. The Challenge: To Be a Transformative President Barack Obama approaches the Presidency at a critical moment in American history, facing simultaneous crises of war, the environment, health care, but most especially in the economy. If he is able to rise to the moment, he could join the ranks of a small handful of previous presidents who have been truly transformative, succeeding in fundamentally changing our economy, society, and democracy for the better. But this will require imaginative and decisive action as Obama takes office, action bolder than he has promised during his campaign, and will be all the more difficult given the undertow of conventional wisdom in Washington and on Wall Street that resists fundamental change. Decades of regressive politics and political gridlock have left America in its most precarious situation since the onset of the Great Depression. The collapse of the housing bubble continues, as does the financial meltdown it triggered; a revival of 1970s style stagflation threatens; incomes continue to lag behind inflation; our household and international debts pile higher; disastrous climate change looms; energy and food prices continue their escalation; and the ranks of un- and under-insured Americans grow as the health insurance system unravels. Facing their own great challenges, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson rallied the American people to overcome deadlocked politics in order to achieve progressive transformations—abolishing slavery, transcending economic depression, and redeeming the promise of civil rights. In his own way, Ronald Reagan oversaw a grand shift in public attitudes and government direction. Each president used exceptional leadership to change the national mood, and then the national policy. By appealing to what was most noble in the American spirit, these presidents energized movements for change, and in turn put pressure on themselves and on the Congress to move far beyond what was deemed conceivable. They generated accelerating momentum for far-reaching reforms that proved politically irresistible. Solutions to our multiple challenges do exist, but they won’t be found in overly cautious or expedient quick fixes. With his exceptional skill at appealing to our better angels, Barack Obama could be the right leader at the right time to re-awaken America to the renewed promise of shared prosperity coupled with responsibility towards future generations and the international community with whom we share the Earth. Invoking America’s greatest leaders, Robert Kuttner explains how Obama must be a transformative president—or a failed one. Advance Praise "A manifesto, forceful but fair, by a leading political economist who lays out a bold but solid program if Obama is elected. As current as the morning`s newspaper, this book should be read by all activists-especially Barack Obama." --James MacGregor Burns, author of Leadership "Robert Kuttner has incisively captured the political moment, underscored by the deepening economic crisis. Lucidly and passionately, he lays out the hurdles facing an Obama presidency and challenges him to seize the moment and achieve greatness by redeeming the promise of America." --Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post "As Kuttner convincingly argues, a President Barack Obama will have a historic opportunity to radically transform America`s direction -- but only if he rejects the tired "centrist" policies of the past and inspires its citizens to forge new progressive paths. Kuttner systematically lays out the case for why Obama should give full voice to a a robust progressive message at a time when the American people are suffering from years of conservative policy. "Obama`s Challenge" is an enlightening road map for all Americans who hunger for a change in direction and priorities in America, and who hope Obama can be that agent of change." --Markos Moulitsas, founder, DailyKos.com, author of Taking on the System and co-author of Crashing the Gate "Bob Kuttner pulls off the all-but-impossible. He hits the high notes with artful precision, lifting expectations and articulating the steps that can make Barack Obama a great president--while setting forth a strong and highly readable call for comprehensive and essential economic change." --John Sweeney, AFL-CIO President Wednesday, September 30, 2009 The Boston Red Sox & The Great Fenway Park Writers Series Proudly Present: Mark Frost – A Peabody & Emmy Award Winning Writer/Producer & Bestselling Novelist Author of and Speaking on: “Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America’s Pastime" 12-Noon Luncheon Absolut Clubhouse at Fenway Park (enter off Brookline Avenue) Friends of The Writers Series and Red Sox Season Ticket Holders, $50 All others, $65 (price includes an autographed copy of Mr. Frost`s book) To Register Click Here Mark Frost – Biographical Brief Bestselling author and award-winning writer-producer Mark Frost studied directing and playwriting at Carnegie Mellon University. At the age of 20 he began his television career writing for the sci-fi classic "The Six Million Dollar Man," after which he moved to Minneapolis and worked as Literary Associate at the Guthrie Theatre and playwright-in-residence at the Midwestern Playwright’s Lab. After writing and producing documentaries for PBS, Frost received a Writer`s Guild Award and an Emmy nomination for his work as Executive Story Editor on the celebrated television series "Hill Street Blues." His first feature credits came as writer and Associate Producer of "The Believers," directed by John Schlesinger and starring Martin Sheen and Jimmy Smits. In 1989, he founded Lynch-Frost Productions with director David Lynch. Together they created and executive produced the legendary ABC series "Twin Peaks," receiving four Emmy nominations and a Peabody Award. In 1990 he also created the groundbreaking documentary series "American Chronicles." Twentieth Century Fox released Frost`s critically acclaimed directorial feature debut, "Storyville," a political thriller starring James Spader and Jason Robards, in 1992. Frost`s first novel, "The List of Seven," became a national bestseller in 1994, and was published around the world in 26 languages. The sequel, "The Six Messiahs," was published in 1996, with his third novel, "Before I Wake," following in 1998. In 1999, Frost created and executive produced "Buddy Faro," starring Dennis Farina, for CBS. In 2001, he executive produced "All Souls" for Spelling Television and UPN. His fourth book, a non-fiction account of the 1913 U.S. Open, "The Greatest Game Ever Played," became a national bestseller in 2002, and won the USGA`s Book of the Year Award. He wrote and produced the feature film of "Greatest Game" for Walt Disney Studios. Frost`s biography of golfing great Bobby Jones, "The Grand Slam," was published in November, 2004. A native of New York City, Mark Frost lives in Los Angeles and upstate New York.