This is the third in the series “Getting to Know the Goddess".

Patricia Austin will share her own experience of having the Goddess tap her on the shoulder, and facilitate a discussion among the participants on their experiences and thoughts. Patricia Austin is a co-producer of this series.

For the last 5,000 years, most women have expressed their spirituality, like their sexuality, based on a male model. Many of us consciously have yearned for a female way of thinking, feeling and expressing our spirituality. The Goddess has returned as a Voice whose existence is needed in these troubled times, and that Voice is speaking to women in ways both clear and subtle. Mark your calendar and come! But, beware: Your life could change in an instant!

Open Mic Poetry hosted by Deb Akers and featuring Nancy Fierstein.

Bring a poem to share, or just sit back and enjoy the evening’s offerings

Nancy Fierstien serves the executive board of the Austin Poetry Society and hosts “Thirsty Thursday,” a monthly venue for poets,  musicians and storytellers in Dripping Springs, TX. Her poetry is in four Texas Poetry Calendars published by Dos Gatos Press, and in five Di-Verse-City anthologies published by the Austin International Poetry Festival. She's also a frequent poetry contributor to Austin's Parent:Wise Magazine and to anthologies produced in Burnet and in Salado, TX.

This reading and exhibition will feature artistic expressions of Shay
Youngblood and participants of Bookmaking: A Workshop for Writers and
Artists.

The Bookmaking workshop series held by ALLGO created a space for eight
writers and visual artists to generate new writing, build a portfolio of
future projects, design and craft original handmade books and altered
artists books. In the workshops participants learned to make a variety of
hand-made books and explored possibilities for publishing their creative
works. Books made in the workshop will be available for purchase.

Sponsored in part by the John L. Warfield Center for African and African
American Studies at the University of Texas in Austin and BookWoman.

This project is also funded and supported in part by the City of Austin
through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission
on the Arts and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which
believes that a great nation deserves great art.

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. – Toni Morrison

Shay Youngblood is an award winning novelist/playwright/visual artist/teacher/mentor. Her plays include Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery, Talking Bones and Amazing Grace. Her novels Soul Kiss and Black Girl in Paris were published by Riverhead Books, her paintings have been exhibited in Boston, New York City and Texas and her essays have been published in Oprah Magazine among others. She has taught in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at NYU, a Rhode Island Women’s Prison and lectures widely in the U.S. and internationally. Currently she is Writer in Residence at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project edited by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Lisa L. Moore & Sharon Bridgforth

Since tAP's inception in 2002, many of you have supported the work of the Austin Project (tAP). As a nourishing community, you know and love many of tAP's ensemble members, so please join us once more in celebration of the collective work that has gone into tAP's book project and to honor the members' amazing accomplishments

We hope that this event will serve, not only as a celebration of the book release and the beautifully brave work that it represents, but also as an opportunity to reconnect with tAP alumni who are traveling to attend this event. Whether you are an experienced audience-participant in tAP work, or you will be a new witness, we hope that you will bring an open heart and generous spirit to the book signing and reception. Come celebrate the bonds of friendship, solidarity, and truth-telling!

Conscious Relationship For Women: Beyond Strategies to Authentic Connection to Self and Others 

Fast track your spiritual growth and healing! Learn how to make EVERY relationship, from work to intimate, family to friends, a place of conscious transformation. Go beyond being triggered and confused, past victimization and judgment, to EXPERIENCING every person in your life as a sacred gift, whether you like them or not! 

Humor and lightness create more internal change than any amount of self-judgment, blame, or comparison. Learn the four main strategies that bog down all relationships (especially your relationship with yourself) and how to consistently make choices that flow nutrients directly to your soul and gently starve your ego. Crank up your compassion so you are as loving as the Buddha, Gandhi, and Mother Theresa all rolled into one luscious package.

HeatherAsh Amara discovered four main strategies that keep humans stuck by being a good sleuth of herself and her students.  HeatherAsh is a long-term apprentice of don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements. She is the co-founder of the Toltec Center of Creative Intent now in Austin, with her husband, Raven Smith. http://www.tolteccenter.org

Come celebrate the Fall Equinox Thursday, at BookWoman with Nancy Scott, playing a preview of new songs that are being considered for her next CD as well as any older songs that you request.  Our special guests for the evening are Nancy's friends Judy Painter and Rose Kimball (Judy and Rose) who have a new CD out that is very sweet... and the one, the only, Sarah Elizabeth Campbell.  Come celebrate with us - Fall is in the air!

Nancy Scott has been playing bluesy, country, folky stuff - from the "belly of her soul", for over 30 years in Austin, Texas. Nancy has been instrumental in setting the stage for women’s music in Austin.

Her inspiration came from the many groundbreakers of the 1970’s such as the Berkeley Women’s Music Collective, Woody Simmons, Meg Christian and Cris Williamson. She has opened for many artists including Phrank, Robyn Tyler, Meg Christian and Ferron and has shared the stage with Jamie Anderson, The Therapy Sisters, Mary Reynolds, Two Nice Girls and Wishing Chair to name a few.

Reading & Signing

More Details Coming Soon!

Brown Babies Pink Parents is a real world guide for White parents who are raising Black children.  Author Amy Ford is the adoptive mother of three African American daughters with first hand experience of the challenges of transracial parenting.  She addresses a multitude of concerns including basic skin and hair care, racial socialization, white privilege, and ways to celebrate the diversity of your family.  Brown Babies Pink Parents is a humorous and heartfelt look at being a multicultural family in a race conscious world. 

"Many books have been written about transracial adoption for families, but this one provides the practical 'how to's' ... in a very open, conversational tone ..." - Dr. Ruth McRoy,  the University of Texas School of Social Work

Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am: How I Ditched the South, Forgot My Manners, and Managed to Survive My Twenties with (Most Of) My Dignity Still Intact by Anna Mitchael.

Like so many bright-eyed college graduates before her, Mitchael begins her twenties armed with the conviction that the world is hers for the taking. And she discovers that it is, mostly--only no one told her just how often she'd have to pick herself up off the floor along the way. From moving to new cities to domestic disasters to the occasional nervous breakdown, Mitchael guides readers through the various stages of her self-discovery with disarming humor.

New members always wanted and welcomed!  

More Details Coming Soon!