June 2008 Archives

 Grotto founders Po Bronson and Ethan Canin headline the next Progressive Reading

July 19, 7pm, at The Makeout Room, 3225 22nd Street

Featuring

Ethan Canin, author of America America

Neal Pollack, author of Alternadad

Tara Jepsen, of Sister Spit

Frank Portman, author of King Dork

Po Bronson, author of What Should I Do with My Life?

Plus, comedy by W. Kamau Bell, named best comedian by the SF Weekly

and music by The Progressive Reading Series All-Star Minstrels

Hosted by Stephen Elliott

Proceeds benefit progressive congressional candidates

Click here for advance tickets

www.progressivereadingseries.org

Gerard Jones has started a new blog about the struggles he's experiencing as he writes his new book, THE UNDRESSING OF AMERICA, for FSG. After months of wrestling alone with doubt and procrastination, he's taking a fellow Grotto member's advice and opening up about the process, hoping it will help his own work and also be useful (or at least entertaining) to other writers. As he writes in the first post, "This blog will be the story of how I got here, an exploration of what the book is, a showcase for excerpts, a platform for your comments and advice, a confession of my madness, and, in the end, the vehicle through which the book gets written." It's at http://undressingamerica.blogspot.com.

This is Who I Am by Rosanne Olson is a book is about women, body image and compassion. It consists of discreetly nude photographs of 54 women between the ages of 19-95. Each image is accompanied by a small essay about that woman’s story. The topics include youth, aging, pregnancy, menopause, illness, health, obesity and much more. It is currently on the “best seller” list for non-fiction in the Pacific Northwest. SF will be my first reading out of the Northwest and I hope that women, their daughters, sons and husbands will come. 
You can see an excerpt at http://www.bodyimagebook.com.