Pulitzer Prize winner Hernan Diaz, Oscar-anointed Percival Everett and bestseller Rebecca Makkai coming to Hopkins for Pen Pals

The 2024-25 lineup for the Pen Pals lecture series comes with endorsements by Oprah Winfrey and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Winfrey declared herself a fan of "Hello Beautiful," whose author, Ann Napolitano, will discuss her bestseller, which is set in the present but deals with four adult sisters and references Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women." Napolitano will appear March 13, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. and the following day at 11 a.m.

Another novelist offering a new take on a classic is Percival Everett, whose 2001 novel "Erasure" (published by Minneapolis' Graywolf Press) was the basis of last year's Oscar-winning comedy "American Fiction." Everett's new book, "James," tells the story of "Huckleberry Finn" from the perspective of Huck's formerly enslaved friend Jim. Everett kicks off the Pen Pals series Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 8 at 11 a.m.

Rebecca Makkai is next up, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 30 at 11 a.m. Makkai, whose "The Great Believers" was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, will discuss her 2023 bestseller, "I Have Some Questions for You," in which a woman re-investigates a murder that occurred years earlier at her prep school.

David Grann, whose mega-selling "Killers of the Flower Moon" was the basis of last year's Martin Scorsese film adaptation, will appear Dec. 9 at 7:30 p.m. and Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. in support of last year's "The Wager," a nonfiction account of a calamitous 18th-century shipwreck.

The final author is Hernan Diaz, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year for "Trust," the trickily structured tale of a 1920s American financier and his wife. Diaz will appear May 5, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. and the next day at 11 a.m.

The Pen Pals series is sponsored by Friends of the Hennepin County Library.

In addition to each writer's two in-person appearances, which are at Hopkins Center for the Arts, there is also a virtual option that is available to subscribers within a 72-hour window. Starting at $220, subscriptions go on sale to current subscribers Wednesday and to new ticket purchasers June 24. Tickets to individual events will be available at a later date. For more information, call 612-543-8112 or visit supporthclib.org.