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 Pen on Fire Salon with Heidi Durrow and Danzy Senna |
This monthly salon, hosted by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, features authors, literary agents, and others involved in the field of writing. Set in the atmospheric Scape Gallery in Corona del Mar, the salon is a mecca for literary devotees who listen to readings, take part in discussions, and attend book signings.
Join the salon on Tuesday, September 6 at 7 pm when authors Heidi Durrow and Danzy Senna visit to discuss their books.
 Heidi W. Durrow is the New York Times best-selling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky , which received writer Barbara Kingsolver's 2008 Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change, and is already a book club favorite. The Girl Who Fell From the Sky has been hailed as one of the Best Novels of 2010 by the Washington Post, a Top 10 Book of 2010 by The Oregonian, and named a Top 10 Debut of 2010 by Booklist. Ebony Magazine recently named Heidi as one of its Power 100 Leaders of 2010 along with writers Edwidge Danticat, and Malcolm Gladwell. Heidi was also recently nominated for an 2011 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Debut. A graduate of Stanford, Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Law School, Heidi is the co-host of the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat; and the co-founder and co-producer of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, an annual free public event, that celebrates stories of the Mixed experience. She is an occasional essay contributor to National Public Radio.
 Danzy Senna is the author of the national bestselling novel Caucasia , winner of the Book of the Month Award for First Fiction and the American Library Association's Alex Award. Caucasia was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, was named a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year and has been translated into eight languages. A recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, Ms. Senna is also the author of the novel Symptomatic , and the memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night? A Personal History , which she researched and wrote as a fellow at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Her latest work is a story collection, You Are Free . She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the novelist Percival Everett, and their sons, Henry and Miles.
$20.00 includes nibbles, sips, and sometimes cake. Advance tickets are required to guarantee a seat. Walk-ins are discouraged as seating is limited. Tickets are available through the Pen on Fire website . |
| Event with Jennifer Niven |
Please join us on Sunday, September 11 for an event with Jennifer Niven, author of Velva Jean Learns to Fly . She will read from her book, answer questions and sign copies. This event is free of charge.
Velva Jean Hart, the fiercely independent heroine of Niven's debut novel, Velva Jean Learns to Drive , returns in a captivating adventure that literally sends her soaring. Bridling under the limitations of faced by a woman in rural Appalachia and fueled by the memory of her late Mama telling her to "live out there," Velva Jean hits the road to pursue her dream of singing at the Grand Ole Opry.
After a string of auditions, she begins to lose hope-- until her brother pays her a surprise visit and treats Velva Jean to a flying lesson that ignites a brand new dream: to become a female pilot. After Pearl Harbor, Velva Jean signs up for military service and gets her wings, risking her life and her heart. Funny, poignant, and utterly unforgettable, Velva Jean Learns to Fly will have fans cheering all over again.
 Jennifer Niven divides her time between Atlanta (where she was named one of Jezebel Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People) and Los Angeles (where her film Velva Jean Learns to Drive won an Emmy Award and she once played the part of Shania Twain in a music video). Her first book, The Ice Master , was released in 2000 and named one of the top ten non-fiction books of the year by Entertainment Weekly. Jennifer's second book, Ada Blackjack , was a Booksense Top Ten Pick.
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| Event with Cindy Muchnick |
Please join us on Thursday, September 15 at 6 pm for an event with Cindy Muchnick, author of The Everything Guide to Study Skills . She will be discussing back to school study skills and school success followed by a Q&A for parents, teachers, and students.
Studying for school doesn't have to be a chore. This fun and accessible resource is perfect for students who want to develop better study habits and achieve academic success. Educational consultant Cindy Muchnick helps readers improve transcripts for college applications; ace standardized tests; and become better, more successful students.
Cindy is a graduate of Stanford University with bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Art History and a master's in Liberal Studies. She is a former Assistant Director of Admission for the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago. She has read and evaluated over three thousand applications for college admission to competitive colleges. In her research, she personally conducted interviews with the Deans of Admission of: Amherst, University of Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Grinnell, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, Stanford, Wesleyan, Williams and Yale. She has also written four other books published by Simon & Schuster and Random House.  While at Stanford, Cindy worked as a campus tour guide and a volunteer student coordinator in recruiting admitted students for the Office of Undergraduate Admission. She next completed her Masters Degree at Nova Southeastern University. As an admission director at IIT and University of Chicago, Cindy read and screened applications, interviewed prospective students, recruited and served on the admissions committee to evaluate borderline applicants and appeals cases. She also taught SAT preparation classes for the Princeton Review, served as an English literature teaching assistant at the Francis Parker School in Chicago, and later worked as a high school teacher at a private college preparatory school, The University School, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Cindy has conducted numerous workshops on steps to high school success, study skills, and college essay writing (as well as other topics) both locally and across the country. She worked as an educational consultant, privately counseling eighth through twelfth grade students for the past ten years. She now speaks publicly and presents workshops full time for PTO groups, keynote addresses, middle and high school students and other parent groups. Students she has worked with have been admitted to: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Yale, MIT, Duke, Wesleyan, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Vassar, all UC schools, Johns Hopkins, The Claremont Colleges, Brandeis, Columbia, NYU, and USC among others. She lives with her husband, three sons and daughter in Newport Beach.
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| Event with Ed Kaufman |
Please join us on Sunday, September 18 at 5 pm for an event with Ed Kaufman, author of From Monks to Mountain Gorillas: A Family's Global Journey.
 In a fast-paced blend of adventure, humor, and poignant insights, Ed Kaufman's linked memoir and travel essays sweep the reader along to coveted destinations on five continents.
The pieces fit together like a fine mosaic, capturing the physical and emotional colors of the moment. At times the author and his wife, Karen, and their young son Adam face danger, whether in the midst of a herd of thirsty elephants in Zimbabwe, or the time Ed falls into crocodile-infested waters in Costa Rica. Then the mood changes: the three travel to Thailand for a family wedding-turned-reunion, and later on have a rare chance to participate in ancient rituals in Ethiopia, Tibet, and Papua New Guinea.
The thread connecting these thirty-three pieces dates back to a turning point in Kaufman's youth before he became a father. Since then, travel has become a key to a deeper understanding of himself, his multitalented wife, and their courageous young son.
The author brings his dual credentials as psychiatrist and writer with a MFA in creative nonfiction to this hard-to-put down collection. Both as an inner and an outer journey, From Monks to Mountain Gorillas is a sequential trip of a lifetime when all roads lead back to family and home.
Ed Kaufman moved to Laguna Beach from New York City 34 years ago to work at UCI department of psychiatry, where he eventually became director of education and Chief of the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Program. Kaufman, who has followed three sons through the Laguna school system, was co-chairperson of Top Of The World School's CLC parent's board and coached AYSO soccer (even, as he says, after the kids were vastly superior to him by age 12). Ed was medical director of the Genesis program at South Coast hospital and on the Board of ACTION, an AID'S support group in Laguna. He is currently on the clinical advisory board of Laguna's Friendship Shelter.
Kaufman, who has an MFA in creative nonfiction from Antioch University, was awarded fellowships in creative writing to participate in the writing programs in Spoleto, Italy, and in Provincetown, R.I., at the Norman Mailer Writers Colony. He is the host of Dime Stories, a monthly series of three-minute readings by local writers. A chapter from his book From Monks to Mountain Gorillas was recently read in "Stories From Home" at Seven Degrees in Laguna Canyon to benefit Friendship Shelter. |
| Event with Jennifer Grant |
Please join us on Friday, September 23 at 6 pm for an event with Jennifer Grant, author of Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter.
Following the invisible thread of connection between people who are seemingly intended to become family, journalist Jennifer Grant shares the deeply personal, often humorous story of adopting a fifteen-month-old girl from Guatemala when she was already the mother of three very young children.
Her family's journey is captured in stories that will encourage not only adoptive families but those who are curious about adoption or whose lives have been indirectly touched by it. Love You More explores universal themes such as parenthood, marriage, miscarriage, infertility, connection, destiny, true self, failure and stumbling, and redemption.
Award-winning religion columnist and author Cathleen Falsani has high praise for Love You More: "From page one of her courageously vulnerable, intoxicatingly funny memoir about faith and family, it is clear that Jennifer Grant listens to her life with great care."
 Jennifer Grant is a journalist and freelance writer with particular interests in parenting, family life, and international health and development. She has been a columnist and currently freelances for the Chicago Tribune. Jennifer is a guest blogger for websites including Fullfill and a regular contributor to Christianity Today's her.meneutics blog for women. Her work has been published on britannica.com and in magazines including Chicago Parent, Christianity Today, Draft, and Conscious Choice. For more than a decade, she wrote features, restaurant profiles, and columns for Sun-Times Media newspapers.
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