Author Reading

This House: The True Story of a Girl and a Ghost

This House tells the true story of Nora, a lonely fifteen-year-old who dreams of more adventure than life in suburban Maryland can offer. Fascinated by the supernatural, she begins exploring an allegedly haunted abandoned house and soon finds herself tangled in its mysteries, uncovering many secrets and befriending a shy ghost named Walter. Drawn from original documents and author notes, this book is based on real events and reveals how a girl, a house, and a ghost became entwined forever.

A Parisienne in Chicago: Impressions of the World's Columbian Exposition by Madame Léon Grandin

In 1893, French writer Madame Léon Grandin accompanied her sculptor husband to Chicago, where he worked on the World’s Columbian Exposition fountain. For the first time, translator Mary Beth Raycraft has made Grandin’s observations of life in Chicago—her awe for the city’s fast pace and architectural grandeur as well as commentary on gender roles, social norms and family life—available for an English-speaking audience to enjoy. Tonight Raycraft will be on hand to share Grandin’s impressions and discuss the translation project.

Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter can be so much more than a way to find your high school friends or learn what your favorite celebrity had for breakfast – they can be powerful tools for changing the world. In Share This! media technologist Deanna Zandt covers the hows, whys, and netiquette of using social networking to create positive change and offers detailed advice for both individuals and organizations.

The Stormchasers

Blum’s first novel, Those Who Saved Us, was hailed by critics nationwide and spent nearly two years on the New York Times bestseller list. Set in the majestic far reaches of Tornado Alley, her stunning follow-up sheds light on the wrenching struggle of bipolar disorder, the mysterious bond of twin siblings, and the thrilling culture of storm chasing, painted with exhilarating details that deliver readers directly to the heart of storms both meteorological and psychological.

Sappho’s Salon Second Anniversary Extravaganza

Featuring Holly Hughes and special guests

$10 includes refreshments

Sappho’s Salon, our popular monthly salon night for lesbians and their friends, is turning 2! Join us for cake and champagne as we welcome legendary lesbian performance artist Holly Hughes. One of the original "NEA Four" (four artists whose NEA grants were rescinded when their work was deemed “obscene”), the two-time Obie Award–winning performer and playwright is author of such plays as The Well of Horniness, The Lady Dick, and Clit Notes. She is the recipient of a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship. Hughes will be joined by guest performers Laura Pazuchowski and Deb Durham. As always, DJ SpinNikki will play us in and out of sets. Proceeds benefit the artists and the Women’s Voices Fund.

Join us as we welcome the author of the groundbreaking classic Diet for a Small Planet for an eye opening and inspiring discussion of her new book, Getting a Grip 2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage for the World We Really Want.

When the tragic January 2010 earthquake struck Haiti, the images of the disaster profoundly affected the 7th grade students of Helen C. Peirce Elementary School's Room 301. While working in collaboration with Free Street Theater and its Act/Write residency program, the students were asked to choose a topic they wanted to explore through writing. The students chose to write about the Haitian crisis and asked if they could do a fundraiser to help. Tonight we are proud to present the creative visions and voices of Room 301 for a special reading and fundraiser, benefitting continued recovery efforts in Haiti.

Poisoned for Profit: How Toxins Are Making Our Children Chronically Ill

In a landmark investigation that has been compared to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, two veteran journalists definitively show how, why, and where industrial toxins and causing soaring rates of birth defects, asthma, cancer, and other serious illnesses among children. Former New York Times chief environmental correspondent and founder of Greenwire Philip Shabecoff and freelance journalist and former executive director of the National Consumer League Alice Shabecoff reveal that the children of baby boomers—the first to be raised in a truly toxified world—are the first generation to be sicker and have shorter life expectancies than their parents. The culprit, they say, are the companies that profit from producing, using, and selling toxins. Join us for a discussion with Alice Shabecoff about the risks of environmental toxicity for our children and what we can do about it.

Shifting Sands: Jewish Women Confront the Israeli Occupation

The first collection of its kind, Shifting Sands presents the personal essays, eyewitness accounts, and intense soul searching of fourteen Jewish women writers confronting the reality of their beloved Israel as a brutal occupying force. In the Jewish community, criticizing the Israeli government's handling of the Palestinian question often labels the critic as self-hating and anti-Semitic, yet the contributors to this anthology write out of love, a shared humanity, and a vision for a lasting and just peace. Join Editor Osie Gabriel Adelfang and contributor Emma Rosenthal for a reading and discussion of this groundbreaking anthology.

Forbidden Bread

Debeljak's memoir covers vast territory, both emotionally and geographically. Beginning in New York in 1993, the book quickly migrates, along with the author, to Slovenia, in the midst of its transformation from a republic of the violently disintegrating Yugoslavia to an independent nation state. Among the many challenges facing her include learning a complicated language, an apartment not much larger than a New York closet, a dying communist bureaucracy, folk remedies, and sexism. Yet she grows to love her quirky and quickly modernizing new home. Set against the backdrop of the Yugoslav wars of succession, Forbidden Bread is the engaging story of an American woman coming to grips with life in a rapidly changing European landscape.

The Big Bang Symphony

In her new book, Lucy Jane Bledsoe (Biting the Apple, The Ice Cave) illuminates the lives of three women thrown together by circumstance in remote Anarctica. In this extreme landscape, personalities, emotions, and connections reach heightened extremes. As the women become increasingly involved in one another's lives, they face challenges they never thought they'd meet and ultimately find a redemption that only the harsh beauty of Antarctica can engender. Bledsoe is widely published, a multiple award-winning, four-time Lambda Literary Award nominated author of fiction, science writing, and children's books. The Big Bang Symphony is her twelfth book and fourth novel.

Featuring Sapna Kumar, M. Shelly Conner, and DJ SpinNikki

$7-$10 sliding scale includes food and wine

Join us for our monthly salon night for lesbians and their friends. Tonight's salon features funny lady Sapna Kumar and writer M. Shelly Conner. Kumar just shot Logo's One Night Stand Up in San Francisco and was a regional finalist on Last Comic Standing 4. Her comedy is about interacting with her crazy Indian parents, surviving the recession while unemployed, and being an entirely-too-single lesbian. M. Shelly Conner's comedy sketches have been performed at Second City and the 2007 Black Playwrights Festival. She's currently working on a novel that explores race, class, gender, and sexuality in three generations of an African American family. DJ SpinNikki plays us in and out of sets with an eclectic array of indie, electronica, dance, soul, and world music. Cover charge benefits the artists and the Women's Voices Fund.

Balancing Acts

In her charming debut novel, Zoe Fishman tells the story of four women who help one another balance their former dreams with their present lives through the power of friendship and yoga. After their ten-year college reunion, each realizes she's fallen short of achieving her college ambitions. Charlie, seemingly the most successful of the group, invites her friends to participate in a weekly class at her yoga studio. It's not long before each is forced to confront her inner demons and make the changes that allow her dreams to be renewed and realized.

The Husbands & Wives Club

For more than a year, journalist Laurie Abraham sat in with five troubled couples as they underwent the searing process of group marriage therapy. Published as the New York Times Magazine's cover story, the resulting article, "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" generated intense reader response and received the Award for Excellence in Journalism from the American Psychoanalytic Association. Though the article allowed Abraham to focus on only one couple, her new book, which grew out of the article and the reaction it inspired, tells the moving, fascinating story of all five couples.

Aunt Mary's Guide to Raising Children the Old Fashioned Way

In her new memoir, Second City alum Amy Peele reflects on her hardscrabble 1960s childhood in Indiana and the laughter and love that kept her large and boisterous Irish-Catholic family together in the wake of her father's abandonment. Bring your mother along, and join Peele and her own mother for this special event celebrating the bonds of family.