Today's Common Hour speaker was not kept secret from campus: Founder of PostSecret Frank Warren.
PostSecret began six years ago as a community art project in which people anonymously share their personal secrets via handmade postcards posted to a blog. Today, the project has expanded onto the national scene and is the subject of several books by Warren.
Warren created PostSecret and its anonymous system of sharing personal secrets in January 2005. The secrets are meant to empower both the author of the postcard, who had never told the secret before, and those who read it. Since PostSecret's inception, Warren has collected over 200,000 postcards and has authored five books on the topic.
Warren's first book, "PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives," was a New York Times bestseller in 2006. Since then, Warren has published four more books, including "MySecret: A PostSecret Book," "The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book," "A Lifetime of Secrets" and "PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God"—another New York Times bestseller.
In 2008, Warren partnered with The Kristin Brooks Hope Center, or 1-800-Suicide, to reach out to postcard authors who thought about suicide.
Warren continues to maintain the blog (postsecret.com) and new secrets are posted every Sunday. The blog has received numerous accolades at the Weblog Awards, including Best American Weblog, Best Topical Weblog, Best Community Weblog, Best New Weblog and Weblog of the Year.
Warren's visit to Bowdoin is part of a larger spring tour, which will bring him to college and university campuses all across the country. According to Assistant Director of Events and Summer Programs Emily Hricko '06, the popularity of the event was immediately overwhelming.
"Tickets went quickly, pretty much the same day [they were offered]," said Hricko. "There's been a lot of student interest, which is very exciting."
The event is open to Bowdoin students, faculty and staff, but tickets are required. For those without tickets hoping to get a seat, overflow seating will be provided on a first-come-first-serve basis in the Visual Arts Center's Beam Classroom, where the event will be streamed live from Kresge Auditorium. A book signing that does not require tickets will follow the presentation.
Some tickets were also awarded yesterday to members of the Bowdoin community who posted their favorite Common Hour speaker on the Common Hour's Facebook or Twitter pages.
Warren has been known to open the stage to audience members who wish to share their own secrets at similar events in the past.
The hour-long lecture will begin at 12:30 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium.