Saturday, March 22, 2008. 11:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Surf and Sand Resort, 1555 South Coast Highway, Laguna Beach
Arrive early and place your bids in the Silent Auction for a variety of
exciting items donated by local merchants and private individuals. We
have a large variety of items to bid on — jewelry, dinners at local
restaurants, get-away weekends, spa sessions, Objets d’Art, and lots
more. We will have books by our featured authors available to purchase
and the authors will be present to sign their books. You can also
purchase “Opportunity Tickets” for a chance to win gift baskets and
other exciting prizes. [If you have items to donate, contact Diane Reed or MIriam Kranser. Click here for donation form.]
This year our speakers will be four highly-praised featured authors:
Judith Freeman, Gina Nahai, margot Norris and Amy Wallen.
JUDITH FREEMAN is a novelist, essayist, critic, and short story writer. Her first book Family Attractions, was praised in the New York Review of Books for its originality, Other novels include The Chinchilla Farm, Set for Life, A Desert of Pure Feeling and Red Water, one of Los Angeles Times Best Books of 2002. Her latest work, The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and The Woman He Loved, named one of the L,A, Times Best Books of 2007, is not a traditional biography, but rather a portrait of the iconic writer and his marriage to Cissy Pascal and how that marriage affected his work and imagination. It is also a portrait of Los Angeles, the city Chandler put on the literary map, and one which gave him his material and inspired his writing. Judith lives in Los Angeles and rural Idaho. She teaches fiction and noir in the Master of Professional Writing program and the Master of Liberal Studies program at USC,
GINA NAHAI is a professor of creative writing at USC, a frequent lecturer on the contemporary politics of the Middle East, and a regular guest on CNBC, NPR, and local television and radio. Her first novel, Cry of the Peacock, won the Los Angeles Arts Council Award for Fiction. Her second novel, Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, was a finalist for the Harold U. Ribalow Award in the U.S. Her most recent book, Caspian Rain, takes the reader inside the tragic and fascinating world of a twelve year old Iranian Jewish girl a decade before the Islamic Revolution when Iran was at the brink of explosion.
MARGOT NORRIS is Chancellor's Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCI. Her speciality is the work of James Joyce, and is the current President of the International James Joyce Foundation. Her six academic books include The Decentered Universe of 'Finnegans Wake' and Beasts of the Modern Imagination: Darwin, Nietzsche, Kafka, Ernst, and Lawrence; Joyce's Web; Writing War in the Twentieth Century; Suspicious Readings of Joyce's Dubliners,' and a monograph on Joseph Strick's 1967 film of Joyce's Ulysses.
AMY WALLEN is a San Diego resident, UCSD professor, and now, debut novelist, Her book, Moonpie's and Movie Stars, was inspired by her summer vacations helping out her grandmother at her roadside convenience store on Highway 90 in Brackenville, Texas. Her novel mines the hilarity of the modem Southern woman on a road trip from the dusty flats of Texas to the glittering aisles of "The Price is Right." Amy also leads an advanced private read and critique group, offers writing workshops in San Diego and hosts the monthly open mike prose reading sponsored by San Diego Writers Ink.
Reservations
Fill
in the reservation card you received with your invitation and send it
with your check to Diane Reed, 439 Los Robles, Laguna Beach, CA 92651.
Or download a blank form from the link below.
Tickets
are $65 per person. After March 15 the price goes up to $75. No
reservations will be accepted after March 8TH and no walk-ins will be
allowed.
Guests are welcome.
Tables of 10 can be reserved; send one check (or all checks) per table,
and list guests' names on a separate piece of paper (this is important
for their name badges). All other tables are open seating.
Click here to download a reservation form.
Driving Directions
Click here for an interactive map to the Surf and Sand Hotel
How the funds raised will be used
The
American Association of University Women, founded in 1881, is the
largest and oldest national organization of university graduates
dedicated to the advancement of women through education, professional
development, and community service.
The
AAUW Laguna Beach Foundation (AAUW‑LBF), the nonprofit arm of the AAUW
Laguna Beach Branch, raises funds to support two Thurston Middle School
girls to attend the AAUW California Tech Trek Summer Science Camp, and
the programs of the AAUW Educational Foundation which encompass many
areas; including fellowships for graduate study and research for
American and international women, fellowships for study in selected
professions, grants for public service projects and careerrelated
study, training, national conferences, and research in educational and
gender equity.
In addition,
AAUW‑LBF supports social and educational needs in the community, e.g.,
the La Playa Center, the Even Start preschool program, the Community Clinic's Women's Program and Laguna Beach Live!