Alice Walker fans who waited in drizzly weather this morning for tickets to the writer’s upcoming talk at the Morton Theatre left disappointed after learning that UGA held back almost all of the tickets.

Free tickets to “A Conversation with Alice Walker” on Oct. 15 were made available at the Morton Theatre box office at 10 a.m. today. 

Several people who waited for tickets said they were told that the UGA Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, which is sponsoring Walker’s two appearances on campus next month, had released only 80 of 500 tickets to the general public. A number of people complained on the event’s Facebook page.

According to Willson Center spokesman (and former Flagpole city editor) Dave Marr, the remaining tickets are reserved for community and student groups, mainly in Athens but also in Putnam County, where Walker was born.

“We’re truly sorry that a lot of folks waited and didn’t get tickets, but we’ve done our best to accommodate a lot of different people,” Marr said.

Walker is also scheduled for a reading, “Standing in Georgia, Writing to the World,” at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 14 in the UGA Chapel, for which tickets are not required. Doors will open at 2:30 p.m. Seating for the reading is general admission, first-come, first-serve, and overflow seating with a live video feed will be provided for those who can’t fit in the Chapel.

Walker is best known for The Color Purple, a 1982 novel that was turned into a successful Broadway musical and movie. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.