How can women turn birthday parties, baby showers, and other rites of passage into empowering celebrations brimming with meaning and fiery feminine spirit?

Emphasizing the Dianic Wiccan tradition, Barrett shows women how they can create empowering, transformative rituals that strengthen their profound connection to the Goddess. Instead of providing shortcuts, scripts, or rote rituals, she teaches women how to think like a ritualist. Step by step, readers learn the ritual-making process: developing a purpose and theme, building an altar, preparing emotionally and mentally (energetics), spellcasting, and more. For beginners or experienced ritualists, solitaries or groups, this thorough, engaging guide to the art of ritual-making can help women commemorate every sacred milestone-from menstruation to marriage to menopause-that touches their lives.

Mystery writer and Burnet, Texas resident, Cindy Lou Ruffino reads and signs from her two books:

Dead Xs in Texas
After fighting a crazed killer in Out of the Texas Mist, Cindy heads back home to end a bad marriage only to find she is in more trouble. Facing another challenge, Cindy finds herself being accused of her husband's death. Ready to just give up, she is surprised when Kinky Friedman shows up to pull her butt out of the fire once again. Once the two deputies from Kerr County join in, the case takes a few crazy turns including a few rogue FBI agents and Homeland Security. Things are not as they seem as one twist after another takes the group from Houston to Mexico and back to the Hill Country. How will Cindy and her Hill Country friends get out of the mess they have found themselves in?

Out of the Texas Mist
After waking up in a strange vehicle, Cindy realizes that she is in danger. Using her head, she escapes then runs for her life through the dark woods. Waking the next morning in a mist-covered field, she ends up on the doorstep of a familiar-looking man with no idea who she is or where she is at. With the help of this nice cowboy she finds out who she is, then finds out that she landed at the doorstep of her favorite author, Kinky Friedman. Together they try to find her kidnapper to clear her name once her cell phone is found in the hand of a badly mutilated woman. Once they discover the mutilated woman is just one of several, they begin to discover body after body as they get closer to finding the killer.

BookWoman is organizing and starting a
new in-store book group, with the first meeting taking place on Feb 23.

Our first title we'll be reading is Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Have you ever wondered why you keep getting into the same kind of relationships, over and over? Does it sometimes feel very old? Peggy Grose, author of the memoir, Celebration! A Woman’s Story of Courage, Endurance and Transcendence, tells her of how she changed her life when she changed her childhood-learned core beliefs about her own importance. Peggy will also present her beautiful and popular book, Love and Lemon Pie, Recipes for the Body and the Soul, which contains simple but tasty recipes she has collected for fifty years and suggestions for communicating in loving and nurturing ways.

Patricia Austin, professional psychic, will be reading Tarot Cards, Palms and sharing other divination tools for BookWoman's clientele as a benefit for BookWoman. Recommended donation is $1 a minute. Pat gives positive and constructive information. Call (472-2785) to get on the list, or take your chances and just drop by!

Local author, Valerie Hausladen, will speak about her new book, Professional Destiny, which has recently been ranked by the Austin American-Statesman as the #2 local nonfiction bestseller.

In her talk, she’ll share tips, personal insights and stories that will help you discover the career you were born for.  As a former executive of Fortune 100 companies and entrepreneurial companies alike, Valerie became fascinated about the difference between those who are truly fulfilled by their work and those who merely endure it for the paycheck. She discovered first-hand that the journey toward doing what you love is not for the faint of heart—and she’ll outline the joys, fears, obstacles and tests you can expect when you embark on it.

Valerie frequently blogs about her favorite subject—helping people discover the career they were born for at: www.professionaldestiny.com

We are celebrating International Women's Day and Global Women’s Leadership. We will host a drum circle, read International Women's Poetry and Inspirational Quotes, have an informative discussion on Haiti, write letters to children and women in Haiti, and promote a mail-a-tent drive for homeless families in Haiti (tents must be smaller than 25x25).

Please come to this celebration of life and make a difference for women and children in an international community. Tonya Lyles is coordinating the festivities, let us know if you would like to help out!

Eleven year-old Susan Parker must keep vigil during a family tragedy that plunges her tomboy innocence into the murk of family dysfunction with Evangelicals her only lifeguards. Walking in the Deep End is an earnest and engaging memoir, written with honesty, spunk, and humor. Although suicide, bulimia, religious hypocrisy, and romantic heartbreak rip through her life like overpowering currents, Parker finds courage and hope, drawing you into her compelling and, at times, uncanny experience of authentic spirituality.

Susan Parker is a consultant, motivational speaker, and author of Walking in the Deep End. After spending her formative years as a Catholic and most of her life in no less than six Evangelical denominations, her experiences reveal a pursuit of faith as sincere as any souls on the planet. She has served as the Director of Job Training & Placement for a nationally recognized non-profit organization, and possesses over fifteen years experience as a consultant focused on recruitment, workplace effectiveness, and diversity. Susan is fluent in Spanish, after having studied in Spain; she is experienced in working within diverse cultures and has worked in various locations around the world. She loves leading workshops, appearing on Internet and public radio, and speaking in front of both large and small groups.

Poetry Open Mac hosted by Deb Akers, featuring Elizabeth Kropf.

Elizabeth Kropf received her M.A. in Creative Writing from Perelandra College and has had several poems and one story published. She has won awards from the Texas Poetry Society as well as the Austin Poetry Society. She has been a reader at the Windhover Writer’s Festival and serves on the Board of Directors for the Austin Poetry Society. She is happily surrounded by her husband and two dogs and teaches at Bryant & Stratton College.

We continue to be an open minded open mic for poetry people of all persuasions. Join us and bring a poem to share.

Join us as welcome author Cathy Erway for a discussion on how to eat in, consume less, and save money.

"Cathy is passionate about sustainable eating and living, and the fact that in writing about her renouncement of eating out in New York, she was also able to paint a vivid portrait of the many innovative movers and shakers in the food scene here, is very telling. There is much more to eating in this, the greatest restaurant city in the world, than restaurants."

-Julie Powell, author of Julie and Julia

"Follow along on Cathy Erway's culinary adventure; not to the latest celebrated restaurant, but to her own kitchen where she finds something even more important than just better food-she finds herself."

-Giulia Melucci, author of I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti