The Lavin Agency is a North American speakers bureau

Speakers bureau

A speakers bureau is a company which operates to facilitate speakers for clients requiring after-dinner speakers, motivational speakers, awards hosts, cabaret acts, conference facilitators and keynote speakers....

 with offices in Boston, Toronto and Vancouver. The company was founded by David Lavin in the late 1980s.

The Lavin Agency represents speakers in the fields of business, politics, arts and science.

History

David Lavin was the youngest chess master in Canada and represented the country in two World Under-27 Chess Olympics. He was a promoter in Toronto who brought authors and other notable public figures to the city to lecture and debate the topics of the day. These speakers—many of whom were making their first visits to Canada—included economist John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith , OC was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism...

, social activist Abbie Hoffman

Abbie Hoffman

Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....

, civil rights leader Eldridge Cleaver

Eldridge Cleaver

Leroy Eldridge Cleaver better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party and a writer...

, and journalists such as Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe

Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...

, Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...

, and Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...

, who are often referred to as belonging to the school of New Journalism

New Journalism

New Journalism was a style of 1960s and 1970s news writing and journalism which used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time. The term was codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism, which included...

.

In 1989, David Lavin started The Lavin Agency (known as David Lavin Associates).

Example speakers include Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters...

, Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...

, author of The House of Spirits and Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond

Jared Mason Diamond is an American scientist and author whose work draws from a variety of fields. He is currently Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA...

, author of Collapse

Collapse (book)

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is a 2005 book by Jared M. Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at University of California, Los Angeles...

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