September 12, 2007

(PDF) | (DOC) | (TIFF) | Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

Frank Warren, Founder of Postsecret, to Lecture at Ramapo College

(Mahwah) – Ramapo College of New Jersey will host a lecture and book signing by Frank Warren, founder of PostSecret, Friday, September 28 in the Scott Student Center (SC-219) at 8 p.m.  The event is free and open to the public.

Warren will talk about his project, PostSecret, in which anonymous senders create postcards portraying a secret that has never been spoken aloud.  The founder posts these secrets on the PostSecret blogspot.  He will discuss his fourth book, A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book, scheduled for publication October 9.
Freshmen enrolled in Ramapo College First Year Seminar courses will make PostSecret postcards.  At the project’s inception in November 2004, Warren mailed 3,000 post cards.  A year later, he received approximately 20,000 cards.  The cards came from all over the world including Hong Kong, Afghanistan, Australia, Ireland and India.

The concept of the project was that completely anonymous people decorate a postcard and portrayed a secret that they had never previously revealed.  No restrictions were (or are) made on the content of the secret, only that it must be completely truthful and must never have been spoken before.  Entries range from admissions of sexual misconduct and criminal activity to confessions of secret desires, embarrassing habits, hopes and dreams.

Warren believes people jot down secrets because they are looking to share a funny story or talk about a secret kindness they performed.  Most people, he thinks, are hoping to better understand their own secrets and perhaps use this project as a first step in taking action on them.

Since January 2005 when the blog was launched, PostSecret has collected and displayed upwards of 2,500 original pieces of art, expressed on postcards, from people across the United States and around the world.

Selected postcards, including some not on the Web site, were published in PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives by Harper Collins/Regan Books, December 2005;  My Secret: A PostSecret Book by Harper Collins/Regan Books, October 2006; and The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book, January 2007.

The lecture and signing will be sponsored by the Office of Student Activities.  For more information, call 201.684.7769.

[ return to top ]