BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Everyone has a secret. Frank Warren will share the ones he has collected from people around the world through his PostSecret Project during a lecture at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Thursday, Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. in Volker Hall Lecture Room A, 1670 University Blvd.
Tickets for the lecture, "The Most Trusted Speaker in America: Frank Warren's 'PostSecret,'" are free for UAB students, faculty and staff with a UAB ID and $10 each for the general public. Tickets can be purchased 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday in the UAB Hill University Center Ticket Office, adjacent to the main lobby, at 1400 University Blvd. The UAB Lecture Series and the Films & Novelties Committee sponsor the event.
Warren is the founder and curator of the PostSecret Project, in which he invites people from every walk of life to send him creatively decorated postcards bearing secrets they have never told anyone. So far, Warren has collected more than 200,000 of the highly personal postcards mailed to him anonymously.
In 2006, his PostSecret blog, postsecret.blogspot.com, which receives more than 3 million visitors every month, was awarded six weblog awards, including "Best American Blog" and "Blog of the Year." Warren's first book, PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions From Ordinary Lives (ReganBooks) became a New York Times bestseller. He followed it up with The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book and A Lifetime of Secrets. His traveling exhibition of PostSecret cards was called by The Washington Post, "One of the five best art shows in 2005."
The All-American Rejects approached Warren about using actual PostSecret images in their "Dirty Little Secret" music video in 2005. They offered Warren $1,000, but instead he asked them to donate $2,000 to 1(800)SUICIDE, where he volunteered. The donation was made and the music video became one of the most requested on MTV. Warren has now released another PostSecret book focusing on religion and spirituality, PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God.
Warren continues to receive between 100 and 200 postcards every day. He updates his Web site on Sundays and is working to produce four more PostSecret books. He continues to call himself an "accidental artist" because he has no artist background or training.
"I have been asked many times why I started this," he said. "It still feels to me as though this project found me. All I try to do is make the right decisions every day to protect the integrity of the project - and learn to trust the journey."
Warren has appeared on the Today Show, 20/20, CNN, MSNBC, ABC's The View, CBC, NPR, and Fox News. USA Today called Warren, "an award-winning blogger, a first-time author, an artist with a traveling exhibit, a possible documentary subject, the inspiration for a music video and the all-around media 'it' boy of the moment."
In 2009, Forbes magazine listed him as the No. 4 most popular "Web celeb," behind celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, tech blogger Michael Arrington and Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com.
About UAB
Known for its innovative and interdisciplinary approach to education at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is an internationally renowned research university and academic medical center and the state of Alabama's largest employer. For more information, please visit www.uab.edu.