Events

These Round Tables are a new way of getting small groups in conversation using the rich resources of the Sitting Room Library. Here is how we are imagining them: no cost, no advance preparation needed. And only one meeting planned. Browse the library, select a book. Each person speaks and also listens and thus we have what we all say we are wanting: conversation. Bring your curiosity! 

All are welcome, but space is limited to the first eight who email Sharon, srbard@comcast.net.

< Image: Vanessa Bell, A Conversation

Anyone interested in hosting a Round Table that is tailored to the resources of The Sitting Room Library, please telephone J.J. Wilson, 707 795-9028 to talk your ideas over, o.k.?

This workshop is designed to appeal to your Creative within – be she/he a writer, painter, sculptor, weaver, designer It is a workshop aimed at all creatives, from beginners to advanced to Masters of an art form, even if that art amounts to doing life. Writing will be the act that serves to integrate the gentle movements of a qi gong practice to one’s creative practices. $30 donation benefits the Sitting Room Library.

Please email Karen, thinkinc@aol.com for additional information.

What could be more fun than sitting a-round-table where we pluck books from the LETTERS FROM WOMEN WRITERS SHELF and choose some worthy of reading aloud to one another. Not surprisingly, from Jane Austen to Zora Neale Hurston, they are good letter writers (tho we are warned that Virginia Woolf’s letters are “intensely performative and recipient-specific in tone”) and I think we’ll get some good insights along with some good laughs. 

To sign on the dotted line for this experience (ltd to six people), please telephone J.J. Wilson at 707 795-9028. 

This Round Table is for the Common Reader, people who consider themselves Woolfians, i.e. have read several of her novels, some sketches, and even some of the critical essays. Participants will select one of Woolf’s novels and pick one critic who has written something on that novel to share with the group. You may also choose to review what Woolf herself says about the writing of the novel and her response to the reception of it. 

Space is limited to the first eight who email JoAnn at joannborri@gmail.com

< Image: The Woolf Wall

From the moment Hilda Doolittle was dubbed H.D. by Ezra Pound, readers have grappled with attempts at categorizing her work. Is H.D. an American writer? Does H.D. belong under the banner of modernism? Is H.D. a lesbian? Bi-sexual? And most importantly, should we still read H.D.? Barbara Beatie has dared to look closely at the writing life of the indefinable H.D. and will take up some of these questions (no satisfactory answers guaranteed) by sharing with us some of her paper that was presented at the American Literature Association Conference in May 2023. 

All are welcome and it is free, but please rsvp to Barbara at Beatieba@sonoma.edu

< Image: Man Ray, Hilda Doolittle

Yet another free Round Table, this time Reading Together guess what? COOKBOOKS. Wouldn’t you know? Get a bunch of women together and before you know it, they are swapping recipes…

Actually what the two hosts-- Michele Anna Jordan and J.J. Wilson – have in mind: everyone in the small group choose a book or two from the tantalizing array of cookbooks assembled here at The Sitting Room Library to take off to a corner to peruse for a half hour or so. When we rejoin, we will all share a part of what we have found particularly toothsome. The good cook books give historical and cultural contexts and some of them are so well written as to qualify as literature (MFK Fisher’s come to mind and Michele’s also).

No preparation or even aprons required though you may want to bring along a copy of one of your favorites cookbooks to show us. Do phone J.J. at 707 795-9028 if you have any questions or if you want to sign up – Round Tables are limited to six people so call soon to reserve your spot..

< Image: Cookbooks at The Sitting Room

It’s fun and easy when you imagine your story, organize its chapters and communicate what makes you wonderful. Learn the form, then forget it if you like—or—make the whole thing up and imagine a life as yet undiscovered. Donation/fee of $25 requested. 

Space is limited to eight, so please telephone J.J. Wilson at 707 795-9028 to reserve your spot.

< Image: Jose Guadalupe Posada, La Calavera Catrina