David Oliver Relin, author of the New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time, will speak on Thursday, February 28 at 5 p.m. in CSU’s Fenn Tower, Room 303, located at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 24th Street.  Relin’s topic is titled "Three Cups of Tea: Up Close” and is part of Cleveland State’s 2007-2008 Cultural Crossings Lecture Series.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

Relin will talk about his experiences writing the book, show slides from his travels to the Karakoram Himalayas, and discuss the work of Greg Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute and the current crisis in Pakistan. He will be available to autograph copies of his book.

Three Cups of Tea was named the nonfiction winner of the 2007 Kiriyama Prize, the 2007 Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Book of the Year, Time Magazine’s Asia Book of the Year, a People Magazine Critic's Choice and a BookSense Notable Title.

For two decades, Relin has focused on reporting about social issues and their effect on children in the U.S. and around the world. A graduate of Vassar College, he was awarded the prestigious Teaching/Writing Fellowship at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. He received a Michener Fellowship to support his groundbreaking 1992 bicycle trip the length of Vietnam. He spent two years reporting about Vietnam opening to the world while based in Hue, Vietnam's former capital. In addition to Vietnam and Pakistan, he has traveled to and/or reported from much of East Asia.

Relin is currently a contributing editor for Parade. He has won dozens of national awards for his work as an editor and investigative reporter. His interviews with child soldiers (including a profile of teenager Ishmael Beah, who would later write the bestseller A Long Way Gone) have been included in Amnesty International reports. His investigation into how the Immigration and Naturalization Service abused children in its custody contributed to that agency’s reorganization.

Relin is currently at work on a book about food, a children's book with the artist Amy Ruppel, and a novel about postwar Vietnam.

The Cultural Crossings lecture series is sponsored by Cleveland State’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. For more information, please call 216.523.7168 or visit www.csuohio.edu/class/crossings.

# # #