In the fall of 2002, amid a media maelstrom, Random House conducted an international search for an author to write a sequel to Mario Puzo's The Godfather. After much consideration, they selected Mark Winegardner, an acclaimed novelist whose work has been compared to fiction by E.L. Doctorow and John Dos Passos for its inventive use of historical detail and its kaleidoscopic depiction of urban life. "We knew Mark would bring new energy and vision to Mario Puzo's mythic characters," says Jonathan Karp, Random House's editor-in-chief. "Great myths ought to be retold by original voices, and that's what Mark Winegardner does boldly and brilliantly in The Godfather Returns, which fills in the missing parts of America's greatest crime saga by telling the story of the Corleone family during the Cold War era."

Sweeping from New York and Washington to Las Vegas and Cuba, The Godfather Returns is the spellbinding story of America's criminal underworld at mid-century and its intersection with the political, legal, and entertainment establishment. Even if you haven't read the original novel, The Godfather Returns stands on its own as a triumph--in a tale about what we love, yearn for, and sometimes have reason to fear . . . family.

Longtime director of the creative writing program at Florida State University--perhaps the finest program in North America--Mr. Winegardner is also the author of two acclaimed novels, The Veracruz Blues and Crooked River Burning, as well as the short story collection That's True of Everybody and the textbook 3x33.

What's the fascination with the crude, ruthless men who people the Mafia, and why have stories about them taken root (after the demise of the once-popular Western) at the very core of American mythology? A lively, fascinating talk about American life and culture, about heroes and villains, myths and legends, and the family at the very center of it all: the Corleones.

The way The Godfather Returns came to be--and how Mark Winegardner came to be chosen to write it--is a tale nearly as fascinating as the novel itself. Winegardner takes you behind the scenes to tell you the inside story behind the story. How--and why--Random House originally contacted him. Why he initially said he wasn't interested, and why he reconsidered. The process he went through to write the proposal that won him the chance to write the book, and how he found the loose ends not only in Puzo's novel but also in the three acclaimed Francis Ford Coppola films that gave birth to a new chapter in a great American saga . His ingenious plan to weave The Godfather Returns through the events of The Godfather, Part II, by neither mentioning nor contradicting anything that happens there. The media circus after he was announced (live on NBC's "Today" show) as the winner of the contest. The research (hundreds of books ... and a few real-life wiseguys). Then came the hard part: actually writing it, under unstinting deadline pressure, determined to wrwin over an eager (but possibly skeptical) world.

A dynamic and experienced reader of his own fiction, Mark Winegardner gives you the chance to hear literature come to life in an author's own words. He is happy to integrate a brief version of a lecture along with a reading from his fiction. He is also a generous, quick-witted, and candid in Q&A sessions afterward.

Mark Winegardner is an award-winning teacher, with almost a quarter-century's experience teaching college writing classes. He can speak on a wide range of topics, either tailored to your needs or on such topics as: