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

Join us as we celebrate South by Southwest and the Spring Equinox! We have a fantastic lineup of local artists. Come party with BookWoman!

5:00 Kristi Rae 
5:45 Nancy Scott
6:45 Annabella
7:30 Elizabeth Wills
8:30 Chris Pureka

Join the new BookWoman Book Group for a great discussion on our March selection: Fun Home, Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir.

In a country she chose for ‘its landscapes and lax visa-extension policies’, Mary is a tour guide at a remote lodge in the Amazon. There she meets Héctor, who sneaks into her hammock late at night or leaves tiny gifts at her door, tempting her to stay longer than she’d planned.

But then she begins to see fires on uninhabited land, hear gunshots, cross suspicious strangers in the dead of night. She doesn’t know if it’s the start of another undeclared civil war or simply retribution on the lodge owner, whose husband had fought with the rebels before disappearing for a decade. When he reappears, Mary is suddenly forced to confront the reality of her situation and decide where her loyalties lie.

In this stunning first novella, City in the River, City in the Forest, by Melanie Westerberg, we are swept up in an exotic world, its familiar cruelty saturated with beauty. Finally, we are left only with a lingering taste of the moments in our own lives when we were forced to choose between joy and restraint, myth and logic.

Melanie Westerberg's short stories and poems have appeared in Torpedo (Australia), RozRazil (Czech Republic), Third Coast (USA) and Mid-American Review (USA). Her story ‘Watermark’ was also included in the Best New American Voices 2006 anthology (USA, Harcourt Books), edited by Jane Smiley. She lives in Austin, Texas.
 

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!

Told with humour and drama, Dr. Ruth Simkin's memoir The Jagged Years of Ruthie J. is a powerful reading experience that will inspire all who struggle with illness, adversity or sexual identity. Winnipeg 1963. Eighteen-year-old psychology student Ruthie J. is the bane of her traditional Jewish family. Briefly married, she drinks, swears, has casual sex and mixes with questionable characters. She also argues incessantly with her father. When a bizarre car accident lands her in court, the confused teen is sent for testing and diagnosed with epilepsy then considered a mental illness. Against her wishes, Ruthie's family admits her to a posh Maryland mental hospital, Chestnut Lodge, of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden notoriety. Put in the care of a sadistic psychiatrist who threatens to have her committed for life, the spunky adolescent finds herself at the mercy of an insane institution. Through the friendship and love of her fellow patients and the subsequent help of a remarkable therapist, Ruthie J. frees herself, discovers her true sexual orientation and perseveres in her dream to become a physician. 

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Dr. Ruth Simkin practiced family medicine for several decades and subsequently became a specialist in palliative care. She has studied in Canada, the US, Israel, China, England and Russia. She is the author of medical articles on women's health as well as Like an Orange on a Seder Plate, a feminist Passover Haggadah. Retired from medicine, she now lives and writes in Victoria, BC where she shares a home with her animal companion Reenie. Simkin is a skilled public speaker who gives voice to the experience of both ex-mental patient and physician, offering hope to those who, like Ruthie J., find themselves in unthinkable circumstances. She currently lives in Victoria, British Columbia. For more information, please visit www.RuthSimkin.ca

Bob Mud (McMahon), is an Australian artist, musician and poet strongly oriented towards environmental arts. His name is Mud because he paints in mud, including the world's longest painting - mud on newspaper. Published author, and exhibition sculptor, his "Environmental Dreamtime" music was distributed worldwide by Larrikin Records.