KCET, Live Talks Los Angeles, with co-presenting media sponsors KCET & KPCC, presents an event featuring Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.

Thursday, September 22, 2011, 8pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
Track 16 at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg C-1
Santa Monica, CA 90404

KCET members receive a 15% discount on tickets. Be sure to use this code at check out: KCET-MEM1. Get tickets.

Pulitzer-prize winning humorist Dave Barry and prolific best-selling suspense novelist Ridley Pearson may not seem like obvious collaborators. But with the sixth in their series Peter and the Starcatchers: Bridge to Never Land, they're re-enforcing their place as the dynamic young-adult duo. Come hear them commiserate about their latest beloved prequel to the classic Peter Pan, and what it's like to write together. They are the coauthors of Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, Peter and the Sword of Mercy, Escape from the Carnivale, Cave of the Dark Wind, Blood Tide, and Science Fair. Both are founding members of the all-author rock band, The Rock Bottom Remainders who, after 20 years are still trying to stay on key. Other members include Stephen King, Amy Tan, Ridley Pearson, and Mitch Albom. They are not musically skilled, but they are extremely loud.

Dave Barry is a humor columnist. For 25 years he was a syndicated columnist whose work appeared in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Many people are still trying to figure out how this happened.

Dave has also written more than 30 books, including Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far); The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog; Dave Barry's Money Secrets; and Big Trouble. Dave has also made many TV appearances, including one on the David Letterman show where he proved that it is possible to set fire to a pair of men's underpants with a Barbie doll. Neither of his children think he's funny.

Ridley Pearson is a best-selling adult crime novelist with more than 25 titles, which have been translated into 22 languages and distributed in 70 countries. Pearson was the first U.S. citizen to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction at Oxford University. Among his adult thrillers are: Killer Weekend, Cut and Run, The Pied Piper, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, Beyond Recognition, and Undercurrents.

He is also author the fantastical YA thriller series, the Kingdom Keepers, the latest of which is Kingdom Keepers lll: Disney in Shadow. Others include Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark and Kingdom Keepers II: Disney at Dawn, as well as Steel Trapp--The Challenge and Steel Trapp--and The Academy.