PostSecret.com founder Frank Warren to speak at Penn State Behrend

Frank Warren, creator and curator of the enormously popular PostSecret Web site and book series, will speak at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, on Thursday, Dec. 10

Warren’s appearance in the college’s annual Speaker Series takes place at 7:30 p.m. in the Junker Center. The event is free and open to the public.

PostSecret.com began in 2004 with a simple invitation from Warren: “You are invited to anonymously contribute a secret to a group art project. Your secret can be a regret, fear, betrayal, desire, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything—as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before. Be brief. Be legible. Be creative.”

The overwhelming response—now over 400,000 postcards—is provocative and profound. The handmade cards are works of art with addictively compelling messages revealing their creators’ deepest fears, desires, regrets and obsessions. Warren calls the postcards “graphic haiku”—small in size but powerful in emotion.

Recent examples from the PostSecret Web site, which changes every Sunday: “I purposely don’t get pregnant to (anger) my mother-in-law.” “I told everyone that I voted.” “Six months ago I had gastric bypass, have lost 100 lbs., and have never felt better! I am terrified that conversations with my daughter about body image, self-confidence, and loving who you are will make me a hypocrite.” “Mom, if you ever find out that I was molested, I will tell you it was a tale I made up to get sympathy from my friends.”

PostSecret.com has launched five books, including PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives, this year’s PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God, and a traveling art exhibit called “One of the five best art shows in 2005” by the Washington Post.

Earlier this year, Forbes magazine put Frank Warren in the number-four spot on its annual “Web Celeb 25” list, behind celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, tech blogger Michael Arrington, and Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com. Citing a 2008 survey by market research firm Youth Trends, Forbes noted that PostSecret, which receives 3,000,000 visits a month, is the 10th most popular Web site among female college students.

As a result of the recurring theme of suicide in the postcards he receives, Warren has become involved with National Hopeline Network’s 1.800.SUICIDE prevention effort. He allowed the band The All-American Rejects, who performed at Penn State Behrend last spring, to use actual PostSecret images in its “Dirty Little Secret” music video in return for a $2,000 donation to the nonprofit.

Warren’s Penn State Behrend Speaker Series presentation is supported by the Student Activity Fee, the Division of Student Affairs, and the Harriet Behrend Ninow Memorial Lecture Series Fund. Upcoming spring semester speakers will be NPR’s Michele Norris on January 21, Fox News business correspondent Stuart Varney on March 18, and environmentalist Jean-Michel Cousteau on April 20.

For more information about Penn State Behrend’s annual Speaker Series, phone the Office of Student Activities at 814-898-6171.