SUSAN CHEKOW LUSIGNAN
Rochester Arts & Lectures
President/Producer
July 1997 - December 2010
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Managed all artistic, financial, marketing, legal, and customer service components of the non-profit organization.
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Co-curated the roster of renowned speakers for 13 Seasons.
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Maintained perennially sold-out events (850 patrons per lecture; 6 lectures per season).
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Developed a sterling reputation with agents that established Rochester as a destination for author visits.
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Managed operating budget ($160K+); met or exceeded national benchmarks for non-profit fiscal management.
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Handled all bookkeeping and accounting for the organization.
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Created historical records for the organization: number of subscriptions and single tickets sold; Sponsorship/Underwriting collected; Patron donations and special gifts; additional funding received; expenses per speaker/per Season.
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Negotiated and edited contracts for visiting speakers, service providers, and Sponsors/Underwriters.
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Wrote all copy for the brochures and supplemental marketing materials (shared responsibility with business partner).
journalist and bestselling novelist Thrity Umrigar
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout
award-winning investigative reporter Eric Schlosser
celebrated novelist and non-fiction author Luis Alberto Urrea
bestselling novelist and children’s/Y.A. author Alice Hoffman
short story virtuoso Lydia Davis
Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks
award-winning mystery writer Louise Penny
bestselling novelist and memoirist James McBride
bestselling novelist and memoirist Lisa See
Emmy award-winning humorist and NYT columnist Randy Cohen
bestselling novelist Jonathan Safran Foer
bestselling novelist Kim Edwards
bestselling novelist Manil Suri
Pulitzer Prize-winning, National Book Award-winning
historian Joseph J. Ellis
book critic and memoirist Maureen Corrigan
celebrated New Yorker cartoonist and cartoon editor
Robert Mankoff
Bestselling Y.A. novelist Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler)
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former US Poet Laureate
Robert Haas
bestselling novelist Claire Messud
book designer and bestselling novelist Chip Kidd
Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan
bestselling novelist Allegra Goodman
2006-2007
internationally bestselling author Amy Tan
former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins
bestselling journalist Jonathan Harr
bestselling author Silas House
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides
bestselling mystery writer Sara Paretsky
bestselling novelist Khaled Hosseini
internationally bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith
NYT crossword editor Will Shortz
artist and bestselling novelist Audrey Niffenegger
National Yiddish Book Center Founder and memoirist Aaron Lansky
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo
New Yorker reporter and bestselling memoirist Adam Gopnik
nationally acclaimed bibliophile Nicholas Basbanes
bestselling sensualist Diane Ackerman
bestselling novelist Jeanne Ray
National Book Award-winning novelist Jonathan Franzen
bestselling memoirist Azar Nafisi
nationally acclaimed poet Donald Hall
two-time Caldecott Medal-winner David Wiesner
bestselling novelist Elizabeth Berg
two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and National
Book Award recipient Robert Caro
National Book Award-winning novelist Julia Glass
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon
National Book Award recipient Barry Lopez
literary forensics expert Don Foster
PEN/Faulkner Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ann Patchett
two-time Tony Award recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning
Playwright Tony Kushner
two-time recipient of the Booker Prize, novelist Peter Carey
acclaimed New Yorker writer Susan Orlean
2001-2002
Pulitzer Prize-winning, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist
Michael Cunningham
acclaimed novelist Anita Desai
humorous travel writer Bill Bryson
environmental defender and Senior Attorney for the
NRDC Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
bestselling memoirist and novelist Anchee Min
internationally bestselling author and former NYT science reporter
Dava Sobel
master crime and western writer Elmore Leonard
bestselling novelist Wally Lamb
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New Yorker
editor David Remnick
famed artist, architect, and Vietnam Veterans Memorial creator
Maya Lin
Jerusalem Prize recipient, National Book Award-winner,
novelist, essayist, and playwright Susan Sontag
nationally recognized poet Jane Hirshfield
bestselling memoirist/travel writer Frances Mayes
bestselling novelist and short story writer Elinor Lipman
award-winning novelist Russell Banks
internationally bestselling novelist Arthur Golden
Librarian of Congress Emeritus and nationally
acclaimed historian Daniel J. Boorstin
architect/urban design expert Witold Rybczynski
*special event with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet, short
story writer, essayist and activist Alice Walker
renowned civil rights attorney and Southern
Poverty Law Center founder Morris Dees
two-time recipient of the PEN/Faulkner Award, novelist
John Edgar Wideman
bestselling novelist and short story writer Jill McCorkle
renowned anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis
popular novelist and short story writer Elizabeth McCracken
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein
New Yorker magazine film critic David Denby
Peabody award-winning 'Fresh Air' public radio host Terry Gross
Pulitzer Prize-winning, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist
Richard Ford
Pulitzer Prize-winning memoirist Frank McCourt
Popular memoirist and novelist Mary Gordon
Critically acclaimed novelist and short story writer
Edwidge Danticat
DEI: Specialized Training and Site-specific Advocacy
CREDITS
Graphic design, Rochester Arts & Lectures brochures: Book Marshall, Book Marshall Productions.
