Wed, October 5 2011

Cindi Creager, Director of Communications & Marketing
(212) 620-7310, ccreager@gaycenter.org

Second Tuesday Author Series Presents:
Born Round by Frank Bruni

First Openly Gay Op-Ed Columnist and Best-Selling Author Set to Speak at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, October 11, 2011

Frank Bruni joined the New York Times in 1995. Over his years at The Times he has worn a wide variety of hats including chief restaurant critic (from 2004 through 2009) and Rome bureau chief (from 2002 to 2004). Since June 2011 Frank has been an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, bringing his world-wide range of experiences and his gay sensibility with two columns a week.

Frank will talk as part of the Second Tuesday Lecture Series at the LGBT Community Center on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 6:30 PM. Frank has also written two New York Times best sellers. His hilarious and moving memoir, Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater, covers his years of bulimia, convenience store binges, and bouts of sleep eating, and includes his adventures as the main restaurant critic for The Times.

His other best seller is Ambling Into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush, a largely anecdotal and revealing portrait of the second Bush presidency, whose presidential campaign Bruni covered.

Frank is one of the most influential and interesting journalists working in New York City today. This is your chance to ask him about editorial policies at the The New York Times, his years of reviewing restaurants, and his best-selling books about eating or George W. Bush. For full information about Frank and the evening see www.secondtuesday.org/Next.htm

More About Frank Bruni
Prior to joining The Times, Frank worked for The Detroit Free Press from 1990 until 1995. During this period, he spent three months covering the Persian Gulf War. He was also named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing for his portrait of a convicted child molester entitled "Twisted Love." He spent his last year in Detroit as the newspaper's movie critic.

Frank joined The New York Times in 1995. For three years, he worked on the metropolitan desk and also wrote for the Sunday magazine, the Sunday Arts and Leisure section, and other feature sections of The Times. From 1998 until 2002, Frank worked as a New York Times reporter in the Washington D.C. bureau. While there, he was assigned to cover Capitol Hill and Congress until 1999, when he was assigned full-time to cover the presidential campaign of Gov. George W. Bush. He then covered the White House for the first eight months of the Bush administration.

From 2002 to 2004, Frank was the Rome bureau chief. In 2005, he became the beloved and must-read chief restaurant critic for The Times, where he reviewed high and low restaurants and vividly described the best and not-so-good food and service he found. Since June 2011 Frank has been an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, bringing his world-wide range of experiences and his gay sensibility with two columns a week.

More About Born Round
Frank has also written two New York Times best sellers. His hilarious and moving memoir, Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater, describes his eccentric and sometimes difficult relationship with food, from his childhood through his five years as the restaurant critic of The New York Times. It's about eating—publicly, privately, as a job, as a compulsion, with joy, with shame—and the role that food plays in families, in romantic relationships and in a person's self-image. Born Round was named one of the Best 100 books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly and one of the 100 notable books of 2009 by The New York Times. The editors at Amazon.com ranked it number 28 among all books published in 2009 and number 2 among food-related literature.

His other best seller is Ambling Into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush, a largely anecdotal and revealing portrait of the second Bush presidency. Frank, who covered W's presidential campaign and first eight months in the White House for The New York Times, mines the countless hours during which he observed and interacted with Bush to explore his presidency, and to present sides of Bush that readers have never encountered. He looks to small moments for big truths, going behind the scenes and offering fresh insights into Bush's oft-chronicled weaknesses, and sometimes overlooked strengths.

About the Second Tuesday Lecture Series
Second Tuesday Lecture Series is the oldest cultural program of the LGBT Center. Since 1985, more than 140 speakers have made presentations in the arts, academia, and politics. Speakers representing every major cultural award, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Grammy Award, the Academy Award (The Oscars), Broadway's Tony Awards, the Lambda Literary Award, and the National Book Award, as well as the UK Booker Literary Award, have made presentations. Through this program, Larry Kramer spoke about the plight of the AIDS Crisis in March 1987, thus beginning ACT-UP, the largest direct action AIDS organization in the world.

About the Center

A beacon of hope for 29 years, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center builds and supports our community through arts and culture, wellness and recovery, family services and life-saving youth programs designed to foster healthy development in a safe, affirming environment. The Center envisions a world where LGBT people will no longer face discrimination or isolation because of who we are or who we love. We offer a welcoming home to 300,000 visitors each year and we are committed to serving all LGBT people through a variety of programs, services and activities that are designed to meet existing and emerging needs.The Center is many things to many people. We invite you to experience our home at 208 West 13th Street in person and online at gaycenter.org