The Aspen Institute

Political Satirist Christopher Buckley to speak at Aspen Institute Speaker Series Program

Aspen, CO, July 7, 2008 –– The 2008 Aspen Institute McCloskey Speaker Series will feature a lecture by political satirist and best-selling author Christopher Buckley. The event will take place from 6:30 to 7:30 PM on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at the Walter Paepcke Memorial Auditorium on the Institute’s Aspen Meadows campus in Aspen, CO. The series is made possible by a gift from the McCloskey Family Charitable Foundation. Tickets for the McCloskey Speaker Series will be $10 each and will go on sale starting July 9 through Aspen Show Tickets at the Wheeler Opera House. As a full-capacity audience is expected for this program, early ticket purchasing is encouraged. Doors will open 45 minutes prior to the start of the lecture. 

Christopher Buckley, “the quintessential political novelist of his time” according to Fortune magazine, is the winner of the distinguished ninth annual Thurber Prize for American Humor, Tom Wolfe has described him as “one of the funniest writers in the English language.” At age 24, Mr. Buckley became managing editor of Esquire magazine and at age 29, he became chief speechwriter to the Vice President of the United States, George H.W. Bush. Since 1989 he has been founder and editor-in-chief of Forbes Life magazine.

He is the author of twelve books including The White House Mess (Penguin), Wet Work (Knopf), Thank You For Smoking (Random House), God Is My Broker (Random House), Little Green Men (HarperCollins), No Way To Treat a First Lady (Random House) and Florence of Arabia (Random House). Mr. Buckley has contributed over 60 comic essays to The New Yorker magazine. His journalism, satire and criticism has been widely published—in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Washington Monthly, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Esquire, and other publications. He is the recipient of the 2002 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. In 2004 he was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.aspenshowtickets.com or by calling Aspen Show tickets at the Wheeler Opera House at 970-920-5770. For more information on the Aspen Institute McCloskey Speaker Series and other events open to the public, please contact Cristal Logan at 970-544-7929 or cristal.logan@aspeninstitute.org, call the information hotline at 970-544-7970, or visit the Institute’s website at www.aspeninstitute.org/aspenevents.

All programs listed below will convene at the Walter Paepcke Memorial Auditorium, located at 1000 North Third Street, Aspen, CO, unless otherwise noted.

Other speakers to be featured in the McCloskey Speaker Series include:

Other public events at the Aspen Institute include:

The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. Through seminars, policy programs, conferences and leadership development initiatives, the Institute and its international partners seek to promote nonpartisan inquiry and an appreciation for timeless values. The Institute is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Its international network includes partner Aspen Institutes in Berlin, Rome, Lyon, Tokyo, New Delhi, and Bucharest, and leadership programs in Africa, Central America and India.

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