Penn State Altoona to host writer and Altoona native John Pielmeier

Book Cover: Hook's Tale
Credit: Penn State

ALTOONA – Author John Pielmeier will visit Penn State Altoona on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017, at noon in the Titelman Study of the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts.  Pielmeier will speak about his work as a playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He will also offer a reading from his newest book, Hook’s Tale. The event is free and open to the public.

Pielmeier earned a B.A. from Catholic American University and an MFA from Penn State. Following his graduation, Pielmeier began work on his play, Agnes of God, while performing in regional theatres in Kentucky and Louisiana. Agnes of God was performed on Broadway for more than a year. Peilmeier later adapted the play for the screen, starring Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, and Meg Tilly. 

Hook’s Tale, was published in July while his latest play, a stage-adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, opens in London’s West End this fall and on Broadway in Sept. 2018.

In 1983, Pielmeier penned the television movie Choices of the Heart, about murdered American missionaries in El Salvador, for which he received the Christopher Award, the Humanitas Award, a Writers Guild of America nomination, and an honorary Doctorate of Letters from St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. Additional television credits include The Shell Seekers (1989), An Inconvenient Woman (1991), Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992), The Last P.O.W.? The Bobby Garwood Story (1992), Flowers for Algernon (2000), Sins of the Father (2002), Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003), Sybil (2007), The Capture of the Green River Killer (2008), The Memory Keeper's Daughter (2008), The Pillars of the Earth (2010), and World Without End (2012).

For further information, call the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts at 814-949-5452.