READERS CALENDAR FOR MARCH 15 THRU 31, 2013

For complete Calendar including Authors Events, go to www.SDWriteWay.org

March 16 (Saturday, 2:30pm) — Ladies Literary Tea Adventure. Adventures by the Book, in partnership with The Westgate Hotel, presents the next in its series of Ladies Literary Tea Adventures with award-winning author Christopher Castellani at the Westgate Hotel, 1055 Second Avenue, San Diego.

This is a ticketed event ($40.00 per person) which includes The Westgate’s elegant afternoon tea, the sweet music of a harpist, book discussion, Q&A, author signing, and an opportunity to meet the author up close and personal in an intimate setting.

About the Book: Christopher Castellani, himself the son of Italian immigrants, brings his unique and insightful perspectives on the immigrant experience – indeed, the American experience – to every page of All This Talk of Love. Drawing on his rich understanding of both Italian culture and the mechanics of a family, Castellani paints an incredibly moving, tender, and textured portrait of the many generations of Grassos and ties that bind them. In a year that will change their lives forever, the Grasso family travel to their ancestral Italian village. The trip, and Italy itself, takes on different meanings for each family member as it approaches, and as secrets from the past are revealed.

For more information regarding the event, please contact Susan McBeth at (619) 300-2532 or at susan@adventuresbythebook.com.

March 16 (Saturday – 12:00 pm) — Young Readers Book Group at the Mysterious Galaxy. Have you ever wished to attend the Lovecraft Middle School? Are you a young monster in disguise? Do you have to hide your tentacles before you go to school in the morning? If so, then please join us as Lovecraft Middle School representative Rob recruits new members for LMS. There will be exciting activities and games, as well as a discussion of Charles Gilman's most recent account of life at the school, The Slither Sisters. Don't forget, book club members receive 20% off the current book club selection!

March 16 (Saturday, 7:00 pm) — Marci Shore, Associate Professor of History at Yale University, will discuss her new book The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe at D.G.Wills Books, 7461 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, 858-456-1800, www.dgwillsbooks.com.

 In the tradition of Timothy Garton Ash’s The File, Yale historian and prize-winning author Marci Shore draws upon intimate understanding to illuminate the afterlife of totalitarianism. The Taste of Ashes spans from Berlin to Moscow, moving from Vienna in Europe’s west through Prague, Bratislava, Warsaw and Bucharest to Vilnius and Kiev in the post-communist east. The result is a shimmering literary examination of the ghost of communism – no longer Marx’s “specter to come” but a haunting presence of the past.

Marci Shore builds her history around people she came to know over the course of the two decades since communism came to an end in Eastern Europe: her colleagues and friends, once-communists and once-dissidents, the accusers and the accused, the interrogators and the interrogated, Zionists, Bundists, Stalinists and their children and grandchildren. For them, the post-communist moment has not closed but rather has summoned up the past: revolution in 1968, Stalinism, the Second World War, the Holocaust. The end of communism had a dark side. As Shore pulls the reader into her journey of discovery, reading the archival records of people who are themselves confronting the traumas of former lives, she reveals the intertwining of the personal and the political, of love and cruelty, of intimacy and betrayal. The result is a lyrical, touching, and sometimes heartbreaking, portrayal of how history moves and what history means.

Marci Shore teaches European cultural and intellectual history at Yale University. She received her M.A. from the University of Toronto in 1996 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2001. Before joining Yale’s history department, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University‘s Harriman Institute; an assistant professor of history and Jewish studies at Indiana University; and Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Visiting Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at Yale. Her previous books include Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism, 1918-1968; and she was the translator of Michal Glowinski‘s Holocaust memoir The Black Seasons.

March 17 (Sunday, ) — Thirty-third Annual St. Patrick's Day Open Reading of Irish Poetry and Prose: Members of the public are invited to read their favorite selections from James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Sean O'Casey, Edmund Burke et al. on Sunday, 17 March 2013, from 7 pm until it ends. Messrs. Guinness and Harp will officiate the proceedings.

March 19 (Tuesday, 7:30 pm) — Warwick's will host Founding Head Teacher at the Grauer School, Stuart Grauer, who will discuss and sign his book Real Teachers. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed Real Teachers must be purchased from Warwick's.

Background: What is authentic education? For that matter, what is a school? And what is a teacher? According to the author, over the last few decades, the American classroom has undergone a shift of enormous magnitude and the consequences of this are truly beginning to make themselves known. In Stuart Grauer's collection of true, short stories, Real Teachers, we are asked to consider the goals of contemporary education and ask: Is this what a school should be? Is this all a school can be?

In Real Teachers, Grauer asks us to embrace discovery, individuality, perseverance, and possibility – to reconsider large class size, standardization, culture bias, "risk-free" schooling, and the sterilization of the curriculum. Through these stories of revitalization and a return to the roots of our culture and education, Grauer imparts a valuable lesson, incredibly relevant in this time where education is misunderstood, teaching is abused, and our students fall by the wayside. Real Teachers is a call to action, a call for change, and for a return to the community-oriented, regional education which was once dominant in our schools. Through this collection, Grauer invites us into the history of his life, his personal discoveries – his road to the growth that made him a real teacher.

About the author: Dr. Stuart Grauer is the founding head teacher at the Grauer School, president of the Grauer Foundation for Education, and founder of the Coalition of Small Preparatory Schools. He became principal of the International School of Basel, Switzerland, at the age of twenty-nine. In 1991, he founded the Grauer School in order to establish humanitarian secondary education in Southern California. He is one of the nation's top authorities on small schools education and has evaluated and consulted with schools worldwide.

 For more information regarding the event, please contact Susan McBeth at (619) 300-2532 or at susan@adventuresbythebook.com or the University Heights Branch Library at (858) 692-4912.

March 20 (Wednesday, 7:00 pm) — Authors at the Astor” will continue with Gloria G. Harris and Hannah S. Cohen, authors of Women Trailblazers of California: Pioneers to the Present.

Throughout California's history, remarkable women have been at the core of change and innovation. The book chronicles the triumphs and disappointments of forty diverse women, Jewish and non-Jewish, who dared to take risks and break down barriers. This program is in connection with Women's History Month. Book purchase and signing following the program. Tickets: $8.00 for JCC Members; $10.00 for Non-members.

For additional information about these and other lectures, please visit our website: http://www.sdcjc.org/ajl/lectureseries.aspx.

March 20 (Wednesday, 7:30 pm) — Warwick's will host travel blogger Matt Kepnes (aka Nomadic Matt), who will discuss and sign his book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed, How to Travel the World on $50 a Day must be purchased from Warwick's.

Background: No money? No problem. You can start packing your bags for that trip you've been dreaming a lifetime about. For more than half a decade, Matt Kepnes (aka Nomadic Matt) has been showing readers of his enormously popular travel blog that traveling isn't expensive and that it's affordable to all. He proves that as long as you think out of the box and travel like locals, your trip doesn't have to break your bank, nor do you need to give up luxury.

How to Travel the World on $50 a Day reveals Nomadic Matt's tips, tricks, and secrets to comfortable budget travel based on his experience traveling the world without giving up the sushi meals and comfortable beds he enjoys. Offering a blend of advice ranging from travel hacking to smart banking.

For more information regarding the event, please contact Susan McBeth at (619) 300-2532 or at susan@adventuresbythebook.com or the University Heights Branch Library at (858) 692-4912.

March 22 (Friday, 7:30 pm) — Warwick's welcomes back bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, who will discuss and sign her latest novel Oleander Girl. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed the author's most current book must be purchased from Warwick's.

Background: Orphaned at birth, seventeen-year-old Korobi Roy has enjoyed a sheltered childhood with her adoring grandparents. But she is troubled by the silence that surrounds her parents' death and clings fiercely to her only inheritance from them: the love note she found in her mother's book of poetry. Korobi dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents', and it seems her wish has come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high-profile family.

But shortly after their engagement, a heart attack kills Korobi's grandfather, revealing serious financial problems and a devastating secret about Korobi's past. Shattered by this discovery and by her grandparents' betrayal, Korobi undertakes a courageous search across post-9/11 America to find her true identity. Her dramatic, often startling journey will, ultimately, thrust her into the most difficult decision of her life.

For more information regarding the event, please contact Susan McBeth at (619) 300-2532 or at susan@adventuresbythebook.com or the University Heights Branch Library at (858) 692-4912.

March 23 (Saturday, 8:00 am to 5:30 pm) — Antonio L. Crawford hosts bestselling authors, Kathi Macias, Lane Ethridge, Angela Stout, Stacy Dyson and others at the upcoming National Christian Writers Conference. The annual event will be held at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Several empowering workshops that will help writers expand their creativity and accomplish their goals are scheduled.

The National Christian Writers Conference is the #1 Conference for writers, authors, music artists and speakers. It provides the training, tips, and tools you need to sharpen your skill and stand out in the Christian marketplace. Attendees will receive expert training, resources and support from award-winning teachers and speakers.

The National Christian Writers Conference provides information and resources to people who want to write, publish and promote books and music that heal, inspire and speak to the hearts of readers. The conference for book writers and songwriters is committed to building a literary platform to encourage people who are ready to take risks to improve their skill and talent in the Christian marketplace.

The San Diego Convention Center is located at 111 West Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92101. For more information about the National Christian Writers Conference, please call (888) 282-8330 or e-mail info@nationalchristianwritersconference. For registration, vendor information, and accommodation details, visit www.NCWCFR.com. For a full list of conference speakers and workshop leaders, click here.

March 27 (Wednesday, 7:30 pm) — Warwick's will host author Amy Hatvany, who will discuss and sign her latest novel Heart Like Mine. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed, Heart Like Mine must be purchased from Warwick's.

Background: Thirty-six-year-old Grace McAllister never longed for children. But when she meets Victor Hansen, a handsome, charismatic divorced restaurateur who is father to Max and Ava, Grace decides that, for the right man, she could learn to be an excellent part-time stepmom. After all, the kids live with their mother, Kelli. How hard could it be?

At thirteen, Ava Hansen is mature beyond her years. Since her parents' divorce, she has been the one taking care of her emotionally unstable mother and her little brother – she pays the bills, does the laundry, and never complains because she loves her mama more than anyone. And while her father's new girlfriend is nice enough, Ava still holds out hope that her parents will get back together and that they'll be a family again. But only days after Victor and Grace get engaged, Kelli dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances – and soon, Grace and Ava discover there was much more to Kelli's life than either ever knew.

Narrated by Grace and Ava in the present with flashbacks into Kelli's troubled past, Heart Like Mine is a poignant and hopeful portrait about womanhood, love, and the challenges of family life.

For more information regarding the event, please contact Susan McBeth at (619) 300-2532 or at susan@adventuresbythebook.com or the University Heights Branch Library at (858) 692-4912.

March 28 (Thursday, 7:00 pm) — Warwick's will host Teen Authors Tell All, a teen author panel featuring Cat Patrick (Revived), Kevin Emerson (The Fellowship for Alien Detection), Sean Beaudoin (The Infects), and Martha Brockenbrough (Divine Intervention). This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed, the books must be purchased from Warwick's.

Background: From angels to zombies to dystopian worlds, you'll find out how teen authors create these alternate realities in their fascinating novels.

For more information regarding the event, please contact Susan McBeth at (619) 300-2532 or at susan@adventuresbythebook.com or the University Heights Branch Library at (858) 692-4912.

March 29 (Friday, 6:30 pm) — Warwick's will host star of Bravo's The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Caroline Manzo, who will sign her book Let Me Tell You Something. This is a ticketed signing only. A complimentary ticket, good for 2 adults will be given upon purchase of Let Me Tell You Something from Warwick's. Only books purchased from Warwick's will be signed. Please call the Warwick's Book Dept. at (858) 454-0347 for more information.

Background: Mother, wife, and fan favorite Caroline Manzo has been through it all as one of the original breakout stars of Bravo's The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The explosive and addicting reality series has seen some of the craziest moments in Real Housewives history, but Caroline has managed to set herself apart as the levelheaded, fiercely loyal, and down-to-earth member of the cast.

Now for the first time, Caroline, who is known for her no-nonsense advice, "tells you something" about what it really takes to juggle three kids and a husband (and still maintain your sanity), all while living in the spotlight. Her wisdom on family, life, and love, and her shockingly honest confessions about beauty, body image, and even plastic surgery, resonate with women of every generation. Equal parts funny, sincere, and revealing, Caroline exposes the sweeter, more reflective side of herself that fans of the show might not always see.

Filled with personal stories, family photos, and Caroline's characteristic humor, Let Me Tell You Something gives fans and readers an all-access, behind-the-scenes pass into the lives of this real New Jersey housewife and her family, where honest advice and practical life lessons are served up as only Caroline can. With her contagious, positive attitude and tips for success sprinkled throughout the book, readers will fall in love with their favorite housewife all over again.

For more information regarding the event, please contact Susan McBeth at (619) 300-2532 or at susan@adventuresbythebook.com or the University Heights Branch Library at (858) 692-4912.

Writers

ATTENTION AUTHORS: Have your book featured in Local Authors Books. Go to Local Writers Lounge for details.

ATTENTION THEATER LOVERS: The SDWriteWay.org webzine is looking for more volunteers to write theater reviews. Of course the tickets are free. Contact Kathy Carpenter at kathy.carpenter4@gte.net.

Sam Warren is the publisher and editor of www.SDWriteWay.org. Visit the site for additional news and calendar events for both Readers and Writers.