BOOK GROUPS AT AMAZON

Book groups meet at Amazon Bookstore and are free and open to new members.

Book group books are available at the store at a 10% discount. Call the store for current selections at 612-821-9630 or email us for details.

We would love to have more book groups meeting at the store. If you are interested in organizing one, please give Barb a call at the store.

GIRL ON READING ACTION
A feminist book discussion/activism book group that meets first Saturday of the month, 4-6 p.m.

ECLECTIC DYKES
Meets on the first Thursday of the month at 6 p.m.

NATURE BOOK GROUP
The Nature Book Group has been meeting for the last four years. We will discuss a book every other month, and for the months in between we will meet socially. For information call Karolyn Redoutey at 612-729-6748.

NORTHFIELD LESBIAN BOOK GROUP
The Northfield Lesbian Book Group typically meets once a month on the first Monday, rotating homes in Northfield. They are eclectic in their book selections, but generally read books by and/or about women—fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, memoirs, etc. To find out more information, please call Joyce at 612-419-6871 or Linne at 507-646-3489.

Women's Spirit in the House FREE Showcase

Friday, May 2, 7 p.m.

Spirit in the House is a 10-day performing arts festival running from May 23 to June 1. The festival brings together 30 different shows, for a total of 150 performances, tackling a variety of ethical issues and celebrating a diverse cross-section of spiritual traditions.

Spirit in the House is dedicated to exploring questions of inner life and outward action through theater, film, dance, drumming, music, spoken word, poetry, and storytelling. "It's not just entertainment—it's entertainment plus meaning, " says Dean J. Seal who serves as Artistic Director and is a former Executive Director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. For more information, check out their website, www.spiritinthehouse.org

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Jane Levin Reading & Signing
Legacy

Thursday, May 8, 7 p.m.

Jane Levin is a Twin Cities poet. Legacy, her first chapbook, is about identity—LGBT, Jewish and cancer survivor. Her work appears in over two dozen publications, including Subterraneans: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Writing, Dust & Fire, The Houston Literary Review and the forthcoming anthology Drash: Northwest Mosaic. She is the recipient of a Jerome Foundation/Intermedia Arts Mentorship in Poetry and a Howard B. Brin Jewish Arts Endowment grant. Jane and her partner Judy have found ways to escape winter by volunteering—working on organic farms in New Zealand, cleaning bathrooms in a state park in Arizona and cooking for displaced residents in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward.

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Susan Runhold Reading & Signing
The Mystery of the Third Lucretia

Friday, May 9, 7 p.m.

The Mystery of the Third Lucretia is local writer Susan Runholt's first novel for teens. Say Mary Logue and Pete Hautman: "Readers with a nose for mystery and a taste for travel will love this clever romp through the art museums and back alleys of Europe." Susan Runholt shares a love of art, travel, and feminism with her teenage heroines, but maybe not their nerves of steel! After college, she traveled extensively in Europe and lived in Amsterdam and Paris, working as a bank clerk and an au pair. She's also been a waitress, a maid, a motel desk clerk, a laundress, a caterer, and eventually the director of programming for South Dakota Public Television. She now lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she is a fundraising consultant for social service and arts organizations. The Mystery of the Third Lucretia was named runner-up for the Debut Dagger Award by the Crime Writers' Association of Great Britain.

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Debbie Rasmussen, Publisher of Bitch magazine

Saturday, May 10, 4-6 p.m.

Feminism In/Action: What is your feminism for and why does it matter? Please join Bitch publisher Debbie Rasmussen for a participatory discussion about how—and whether—feminism can become a transformative movement for social change.

Some of the questions she would like to explore in the discussion: How can we drive attention to the power, privilege, and marginalization that continue to play out in feminist communities? How can we create an independent feminist media? Can the idea of "feminism" shift to foreground an uncompromising, transformative commitment to systemic social change?

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Nuruddin Farah Reading & Signing
Knots

Thursday, May 15, 7 p.m.

Called "one of the most sophisticated voices in modern fiction" (The New York Review of Books), Nuruddin Farah is widely recognized as a literary genius. He proves it yet again with Knots, the story of a woman who returns to her roots and discovers much more than herself. Born in Somalia but raised in North America, Cambara flees a failed marriage by traveling to Mogadishu. And there, amid the devastation and brutality, she finds that her most unlikely ambitions begin to seem possible. Conjuring the unforgettable extremes of a fractured Muslim culture and the wayward Somali state through the eyes of a strong, compelling heroine, Knots is another Farah masterwork.

Nurudin Farah is the author of nine novels, including From a Crooked Rib, Links and his Blood in the Sun trilogy: Maps, Gifts, and Secrets. His novels have been translated into seventeen languages and have won numerous awards. Farah was named the 1998 laureate of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, "widely regarded as the most prestigious international literary award after the Nobel" (The New York Times). Born in Baidoa, Somalia, he now lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with his wife and their children.

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Kathryn Kysar and contributors Reading & Signing
Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers

Friday, May 16, 7 p.m.

Just in time for Mother's Day, a group of America's celebrated literary women have come together to tackle a topic close to their hearts: Mom. These highly personal yet often universal stories offer windows into those influential mother-daughter moments that have forever shaped the lives and perspectives of the writers, powerful women—authors, spokespeople, scholars, teachers, and some mothers themselves.

Jonis Agee's mother haunts her daughter's plumbing. Tai Coleman's mother struggled to raise five children on her own wits and a single paycheck. Heid Erdrich's mother showed her daughter both the falsity and the truth in the cliche of the "Indian Princess." Sheila O'Connor's mother, who ran a road construction company, was not like other mothers. Ka Vang's mother dodged the hand grenades that her husband's first wife threw on her wedding day. Morgan Grayce Willow's mother drove home late at night after selling cosmetics to farm wives as her daughter rode shotgun.

In true tales of startling candor and rich insight, these and many other talented writers reflect on the women who raised them, revealing hard work and hardship, successes and failures, love and anger—mothers and daughters.

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Workshop with Susan Miranda: A Celebration of Many Loves & Relationships in all of Their Diversity

Thursday, May 22, 7-8 p.m.

When the labels don't fit and the continuums exist!

• The beauty of complex relationships
• Touch
• Attraction
• Complex Intimacy (Emotional, Physical, Spiritual, Sexual)
• Continuums (Friend-Lover, Polyamory-Monogamy, Sexual-Nonsexual)
• Flirtations and being alive in the moment
• Is there ever money exchanged?
• What does it mean to be authentic in all interactions?

Susan has an M.A. in Human Development with an emphasis in women's sexuality. She has studied experiential forms of body and sexuality education including Body-Mind Centering(TM), and Ancient Hawaiian Bodywork or Lomi Lomi massage. She has also participated in the Betty Dodson Bodysex workshop in New York City.

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