Events
« February 03, 2010 - March 05, 2010 »
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02 / 3
Start: 12:00 pm
Join Janet Ott the 1st Wednesday of each month (12:00-1:00pm). Meetings are in the Readings Gallery. Brown bag lunches are encouraged.
Authors DO NOT attend.
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry
Emotional intelligence (EQ) needs little introduction—it’s no secret that EQ is critical to your success. But knowing what EQ is and knowing how to use it to improve your life are two very different things. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 delivers a step-by-step program for increasing your EQ via four, core EQ skills that enable you to achieve your fullest potential: 1) Self-Awareness, 2) Self-Management, 3) Social Awareness, and 4) Relationship Management.
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02 / 4
Start: 7:00 pm
As Vancouver assiduously prepares to become centre-stage of the world in 2010, the city’s unbridled development and inflated ego are darkly satirized in Nowlin’s debut novel. Classical mythology, fairy tale, and criminal mystery all interweave to raise questions about modern society’s inordinate appetite for spectacle.
Christopher Nowlin is a criminal lawyer, artist, and author. His first book, Judging Obscenity: A Critical History of Expert Evidence, dealt with freedom of speech and censorship issues. His legal essays have been published in American and Canadian law journals, his art has been exhibited in Vancouver and Toronto, and he appeared in a 2007 documentary film Mr. Big.
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02 / 5
Start: 7:00 pm
This is not your usual survivor or self help story. Canadian writer and speaker Louise Uwacu was born in Rwanda, and published this memoir published 15 years after she fled from Rwanda and became an international traveler on fake passports. The book is the actual true tale of a human who refuses to give up. Uwacu seizes all the second chances and conquers the nightmares of her previous life with a passion and conviction that inspires a POSITIVISION* in all our Lives. She motivates a new generation to do some fast growing up, and to have a better imagination when it comes to ideas for their own survival.
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02 / 6
Start: 7:00 pm
In this moving book, Eder writes of being a commercial fisherman's wife, a mother, and a successful attorney on the Oregon coast. Set against the sudden loss at sea of the Eders' oldest son, Ben, it is a tale of indescribable sadness but also one of resilience and courage, a stunning testament to one family's strength and the memory of their remarkable son.
Salt in Our Blood received the 2009 WILLA Award for Creative Non-Fiction. Michele lives in Newport, Oregon, and has practiced law for 30 years. She currently serves as a member of the North Pacific Research Board, and, as a two-term Presidential appointee, is a member of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.
Listen for a pre-event interview with Michele on KGMI radio (790AM) with Audra Schroeder on Wednesday, February 3rd at 7:15am.
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02 / 7
Start: 2:00 pm
Join us for this special event entitled, The Dent in My Forehead: Alice Walker, Anxiety, and the Art of Biography
Evelyn C. White will discuss her decade-long journey as the official biographer of Alice Walker. In this informal conversation, she'll address the rise of the "you too can become a best-selling author" industry and the special lure that prospects for "fame and fortune" can hold over aspiring writers. Expect candor and honesty about the myriad pitfalls of commercial publishing and the resources writers in all genres can develop to claim their artistic destiny.
Note, this event coincides with the regularly scheduled time for the VB Reads...Lesbian Book Group, and participants in that group are encouraged to attend.
Start: 4:00 pm
A friend once bet Ernest Hemmingway that he couldn’t write a story in just six words. In this mini-workshop, we will discuss how Hemmingway proved his friend wrong. Both beginning and experienced writers are encouraged to come learn about short-short stories, a genre developing on the fringes of literary fiction. Join us and learn how to condense conventional storytelling elements into potent pieces of “microfiction.”
Scott Provence has an MFA in Fiction from UW and his short-short stories have been published in numerous literary journals. He will be teaching a short-short story class at WCC in late February that is open to the public.
Read the article about Scott and his Flash Fiction.
Co-sponsored by WCC’s Community Education program.
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02 / 8
Start: 7:00 pm
Sunny Massad's UnTherapy offers practical coping skills for reversing self-imposed suffering like worry, anxiety, resent, stress, apathy, self-neglect and self-abuse. UnTherapy speaks to the heart of anyone who realizes that traditional therapy does not (or never did) help them to evolve. If you feel like therapy has stunted your growth or "working on yourself" has only resulted in self-judgment, UnTherapy provides a refreshing alternative. Sunny Massad, whose Ph.D. is in psychology, is known for her warmth, insight, and sense of humor. She is the President and Founder of the Hawaii Wellness Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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02 / 9
Start: 7:00 pm
Once a month, eight eclectic students gather in Lillian's restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect. The students have come to learn the art behind Lillian's soulful dishes but it quickly becomes clear they each seek a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. Soon they are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create, and the evocative lessons that food teaches about life.
Erica Bauermeister's love of slow food and slow life was instilled by her two years living in northern Italy with her family. She has taught literature and writing at the University of Washington, and lives in Seattle with her family. This is her first novel.
Co-sponsored by Hedgebrook Writing Retreat (Hedgebrook.org)
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02 / 10
Start: 1:00 pm
VB-sponsored book group…open to all
Join the "chatter"! Bring your tea or latte, and come discuss contemporary lit. with Sittrea and the Afternoon Book Chat on the 2nd Wednesday of each month at 1pm.
Authors DO NOT attend.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
In this enthralling international bestseller, two girls live inconspicuous lives in the center of an elegant Paris apartment building. It is only when a stranger moves into their building—and sees through the girls’ disguises—that Paloma and Rene discover their kindred spirits.
Start: 7:00 pm
Corbin shares the bumpy road that led her to motherhood and her career as a writer. Deformed sperm, a miscarriage, and quitting her job to become an editor only to have that publication become bankrupt were a few hurdles that she crossed along the way. But Corbin not only survives, she thrives, and is able to share her story in a heartfelt and humorous way.
Corbin Lewars’ work can be read in numerous publications, including Hip Mama, Mothering, and Midwifery Today. She was the editor of Verve and Mamaphiles #3, and is the founder of the zine Reality Mom, currently in its seventh year of publishing. She lives in Seattle with her two children.
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02 / 11
Start: 7:00 pm
After brisk sales and numerous award, Massacred for Gold is already in its second printing. This is the first authoritative account of the 1887 massacre of up to 34 Chinese gold miners in Hells Canyon. The killers were an improbable gang of Oregon horse thieves and schoolboys, motivated by racial hatred and the prospect of easy fortune. None of them were held accountable.
Veteran journalist Greg Nokes exposes a century-long cover-up of the crime by a white population which cared more about protecting the reputations of the killers and their families than solving the worst crime committed by whites against 19th century Chinese immigrants.
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02 / 12
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02 / 13
Start: 6:00 pm
Join us at 6pm for a Tango demonstration and the opportunity to try tango! Put on your dancing shoes and come to Village Books at 6pm. Rebecca Niemier, and dancers from Rebecca's Tango Life will demonstrate various tango steps and YOU will have a chance to try tango if you like! Author Maria Finn may even join in the dance . . .
Start: 7:00 pm
As exhilarating as the Tango itself, the story whirls us into the center of the ballroom dancing craze. Buoyed by the author's humor and passion, it imparts surprising insights about how to get on with life after you've lost in love. Maria Finn's husband was cheating. First she threw him out. Then she cried. Then she signed up for tango lessons. It turns out that tango has a lot to teach about understanding love and loss, about learning how to follow and how to lead, how to live with style and flair, take risks, and sort out what it is you really want. As Maria's world begins to revolve around the friendships she makes in dance class and the milongas (social dances) she attends regularly in NYC, we discover with her the fascinating culture, history, music, moves, and beauty of the Argentine tango. With each new dance step she learns—the embrace, the walk, the sweep, the exit—she is one step closer to returning to the world of the living. Eventually Maria travels to Buenos Aires, the birthplace of tango, and finds the confidence to try romance again.
Maria Finn has written for Audubon Magazine, Saveur, Metropolis, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, and her essays have been anthologized in Best Food Writing and The Best Women's Travel Writing.
*Join us at 6pm for a Tango demonstration and the opportunity to try tango. Put on your dancing shoes and come to Village Books at 6pm. Rebecca Niemier, and dancers from Rebecca's Tango Life will demonstrate various tango steps and YOU will have a chance to try tango if you like!
Enter the Heartbreak Competition by sharing your tale of heartbreak!
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02 / 14
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02 / 15
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02 / 16
Start: 7:00 pm
Featuring the author’s recommended trails for winter hiking throughout Western Washington, the Winter Hikes Deck is a versatile pack of outdoor options. From low-land routes and rainforest rambles, to coastal tramps and protected peaks, each card features a route description on one side and a map on the other. The deck includes 13 never-before-published hikes. Several additional cards provide essentials for winter hiking, an index of hikes, and information on winter flora and fauna.
Craig Romano is an avid hiker, runner, kayaker, and cyclist. He’s written for many publications and is co-creator of Hikeoftheweek.com. He is the author of Best Hikes With Dogs Inland Northwest, Columbia Highlands: Exploring Washington’s Last Frontier, as well as Day Hiking: Olympic Peninsula, Day Hiking: North Cascades, and Day Hiking: Central Cascades. Craig lives in Mount Vernon.
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02 / 17
Start: 12:00 pm
VB Reads…Engaged Citizens Book Group Authors DO NOT attend.
Join Mary Dumas in the Readings Gallery on the 3rd Wednesday of each month to discuss books exploring how to create a more civil and engaged community. Brown bag lunches encouraged. Anyone interested in exploring their role as an engaged citizen is welcome.
The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business, By Clayton Christensen
In this revolutionary business book, Harvard professor Christensen demonstrates why outstanding companies that do everything right still lose their market leadership when confronted with disruptive changes in technology and market structure. He tells how to avoid a similar fate as businesses race online into the 21st century.
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02 / 18
Start: 7:00 pm
An Indie-Next Selection for February 2010!
Fundamentalism meets deep ecology in this unusual memoir. The author’s childhood in the high Sierra with her forest ranger father led her to embrace the entire natural world, while her Southern Baptist relatives prepared eagerly and busily to leave the world. Peterson survived fierce “sword drill” competitions demanding total recall of the Scriptures and awkward dinner table questions (“Will Rapture take the cat, too?”) only to find that environmentalists with prophecies of doom can also be Endtimers. Peterson paints such a hilarious, loving portrait of each world that the reader, too, may want to be Left Behind.
Brenda Peterson is a nature writer and novelist, author of 15 books, including a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year,” Duck and Cover. Her memoir, Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals, was chosen as a “Best Spiritual Book of 2001,” a One Spirit and Quality Paperback Club book, and is just out in a Chinese edition. Her ten non-fiction books, including Living by Water and the National Geographic book, Sightings: The Gray Whale’s Mysterious Journey established her as a prominent creative non-fiction writer, extensively profiled in America’s Nature Writers.
Brenda Peterson’s non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Reader’s Digest, Christian Science Monitor, and Utne Reader. Her work is featured in national magazines, including Sierra, Oprah magazine, and Orion: People and Nature. She is a frequent columnist for the Seattle Times and since 1993 she has contributed environmental commentary for both Seattle National Public Radio stations. Since 1980, Peterson has taught writing in universities and privately.
For the past two decades, Peterson has studied and written about animals, especially marine mammals and wolves. She is the founder of the grassroots conservation group Seal Sitters, based in Seattle.
With Toni Frohoff, she co-edited the Sierra Club anthology Between Species: Celebrating the Dolphin-Human Bond. Her bestselling anthology Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals is often taught in university courses.
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02 / 19
Start: 7:00 pm
Groundbreaking, empowering, and inspiring, this is James’ chronicle of how his unorthodox education brought him success, and how anyone – from children struggling in school to professionals looking to jump-start their careers – can become educated on their own terms.
When James Bach was just 24 years old, he told a classroom of at risk kids, “Education is important. School is not. I didn’t need school. Neither do you.” And James should know. At the age of 14, James, son of Richard Bach (bestselling author of the 1970s classic Jonathan Livingston Seagull), dropped out of school because it was “interfering” with his education. To James, it wasn’t just a waste of time, he felt he was using his own time against himself. This was a seemingly radical idea for someone who would go on to become one of the youngest technical managers at Apple Computers and an internationally-recognized expert in the field of computer software testing.
Here James strongly advocates the importance of “unschooling”—considering himself not a student but rather a “Buccaneer-Scholar.” To James, a buccanneer-scholar is a person “whose love of learning is not muzzled, yoked or shackled by any institution or authority and whose mind is driven to wander and find its own voice and place in the world.”
The volatility of today’s job market and the limitless opportunities afforded by the internet have forever changed people's attitudes about schooling. In this world of rapid technological development, people are becoming successful, making money and finding personal satisfaction through non-traditional means. Ideas have become more important than training; innovation is more important than credentials. The ability to educate oneself — to learn how to learn — is crucial.
With Secrets of a Bunccaneer Scholar, James doesn’t seek to eliminate schools but he does want to deconstruct the belief that formal education is the only path to a great education. In his uniquely pithy and anecdotal style, James outlines the eleven elements of his self-education method and shows how every reader — simply by investing time and passion into educating themselves about the things that really interest them — can develop a method for acquiring knowledge and expertise that fits their temperaments and enhances their unique abilities and skills.
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02 / 20
Start: 7:00 pm
When small-time criminal Albert Lethewood is murdered, he leaves his daughter Astrid a house in the town of Indigo Springs. Suspecting a scam, she nevertheless moves in. . . and there discovers a cache of magical objects. With the help of two friends: dependable, heroic Jacks Glade and volatile Sahara Knax, she works to puzzle out the nature and purpose of the magical objects. But Albert's killer is still out there. Worse, the mystical power is deeply seductive. . . and Sahara might be willing to risk everything, even Astrid herself, if she can control the emerging power.
A.M. Dellamonica is a writer from Vancouver, B.C. whose short fiction has been appearing in science fiction magazines and anthologies since the 1990s. She teaches writing through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.
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02 / 21
Start: 4:00 pm
When does a lie become the truth? Walk the blurry line between truth and lies…hear a selection of local students read their own stories of deception. This event is inspired by Tobias Wolff’s book Old School. The program is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest and supported, in part, by a grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
Refreshments will be served and the first 50 attendees will receive a copy of Deception.
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02 / 22
Start: 7:00 pm
An Indie Next Selection for February 2010!
Durrow’s award-winning debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white. In the tradition of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, here is a portrait of a young girl and society's ideas of race, class, and beauty. It is the winner of the Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice.
Heidi W. Durrow has won the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition and the Chapter One Fiction Contest. She has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the American Scandinavian Foundation, and the Lois Roth Endowment and a Fellowship for Emerging Writers from the Jerome Foundation. Her writing has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, and others.
Note: The February Open Mic will be on Wednesday, February 24th at 7pm.
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02 / 23
Start: 7:00 pm
Presentation Includes Slide Show!
This book explores the watershed and urban ecologies of the Northern Cascades, the Olympic Peninsula, and the Olympic Coast waterways on both sides of Interstate 5, a major artery of industrial-urban growth, as the author sea kayaks the lakes, rivers, estuaries, deltas, bays and inlets coursing into the Puget Sound and into the Pacific Ocean.
Dan Baharav is an avid outdoorsman traveling the Pacific Ocean waterways in his sea kayak. He holds a Ph.D. in Zoology and Ecology and for the last forty years he has held both academic and consulting posts. His focus is on applying contemporary ecological theories to multi-purpose use of natural resources. Currently, he resides in Bellingham.
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02 / 24
Start: 7:00 pm
Village Books invites everyone to enjoy local talents as they share their written words. Not published? No worries. Feel free to share some of your own writing! Sign up at our main counter on the first floor. Laurel Leigh, story writing instructor at Whatcom Community College, will host.
Please note: For this month only Open Mic will happen on a Wednesday night in order to accommodate an author event on Monday. In March, Open Mic will return to it's usual Monday night slot.
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02 / 25
Start: 7:00 pm
This is a “must have” for every gardener! By offering an easy visual system for diagnosing any plant malady—and matching it to the right, organic, cure—plant problems will be a thing of the past. If you can see it, you can fix it!
Authors David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth have culminated their lives’ work into this one indispensable resource. They own a landscape design and garden coaching firm in Port Townsend, and Deardorff is also a plant pathologist and botanist.
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02 / 26
Start: 7:00 pm
In post-Soviet Russia, Tanya carries a notebook wherever she goes, recording her observations and her dreams of finding love. As she scrambles to hold onto her dreams, along the way she discovers that love may have been waiting in her own courtyard all along.
Gina Ochsner is the author of two collections of short stories, People I Wanted to Be and The Necessary Grace to Fall, both of which won the Oregon Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Glimmer Train, and many others. She is a recipient of the Flannery O'Connor Award, the Ruth Hindman Foundation Prize, Guggenheim and NEA grants, and the Raymond Carver Prize. She lives in Keizer, Oregon.
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02 / 27
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02 / 28
Start: 2:00 pm
VB Reads...Feminist Book Group -- Village Books Reading Group!
Join Jen, on the last Sunday of every month to discuss and explore feminism in a fun, empowering environment. Open to anyone who wants to explore feminism.
Authors DO NOT ATTEND.
American Romances by Rebecca Brown
This collection of mordant, poignant, and playful essays shows Brown at the height of her imaginative and intuitive powers.
A wry, incisive social and literary critique is couched in a gonzo mix of pop culture, autobiography, fiction, literary history, misremembered movie plots, and fantasy that plays with the notion of what it is to be “American.” Fantastical connections and unlikely meetings span the course of America’s cultural history in a manic remix, featuring appearances by Brian Wilson, Gertrude Stein, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Invisible Man, the Abligensian Crusade, John Wayne, Felix Mendelssohn, JFK, Shane, and God.
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03 / 1
Start: 7:00 pm
VB Reads…General Literature
Join Cindi to discuss books from a variety of genres the 1st Monday of each month at 7pm.
Authors DO NOT attend.
Wandering Star, by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clzio
Wandering Star is the story of two young women, one uprooted by the Holocaust and the other by the founding of the state of Israel. Bearing witness to the boundless strength of the spirit, and based on his own experience as a child in World War II, J.M.G. Le Clezio chronicles the saga of a young girl, Esther, who, in a small mountain village north of Nice occupied by Italian forces, learns what it means to be Jewish in wartime Europe. A quiet young teenager, she suffers the loss of her beloved father and, with her mother, is forced to flee advancing German troops.
At war's end, Esther and her mother make an arduous journey to Jerusalem, where their path crosses with a group of displaced refugees, including Nejma, a Palestinian girl whose story of life in the camps balances Esther's own tale of suffering and survival. Esther and Nejma never meet again, but in their respective exiles, they are forever haunted by the memory of one another. Wandering Star is a powerful coming-of-age story that offers a luminous lesson in humanity.
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03 / 2
Start: 7:00 pm
LeWarne tells the compelling story of a group of idealistic seekers whose quest for a communal life grounded in love, service, and obedience to a charismatic leader foundered when that leader's power distanced him from his followers. With both sympathy and balance, LeWarne describes the Family's daily life in the urban and later the rural communes, and explains the Family's deeply felt spiritual beliefs. The Seattle Times called the book "well-documented and readable, an intimate look at an intentional family of more than 35 years."
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03 / 3
Start: 12:00 pm
Join Janet Ott the 1st Wednesday of each month (12:00-1:00pm). Meetings are in the Readings Gallery. Brown bag lunches are encouraged.
Authors DO NOT attend.
Outliers: the Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
In this landmark work, the author of Blink and The Tipping Point asks what makes high-achievers different? Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
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03 / 4
Start: 7:00 pm
“So when are you two going to have kids?”
“Aren’t you lonesome without children?”
“Why won’t you make me a grandparent?”
These are just a few of the questions childfree adults hear, sometimes creating anxiety, self-doubt and guilt. Having children is a personal choice requiring careful consideration, not an automatic response to the social pressure of a child-oriented world. Written by a childfree psychologist for those considering the option of having children or not, this book features highly personal stories of others facing this decision and the psychological processes that influence them. The reader will gain useful, unbiased information on how to deal with the problems and possibilities faced as a result of being childfree. The purpose of this book is encouraging readers to accept their situations and find ways to have the richest, most fulfilling life possible. The author will donate a percentage of the proceeds from this book to Mt. Baker Planned Parenthood, because "being wanted and loved is the right of every child."
Ellen L. Walker received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Seattle Pacific University, and has a busy psychology practice in Bellingham. Dr. Walker and her psychologist husband, Chris, enjoy an adventure-filled life with their two terriers, Bella and Scuppers.
Read the Bellingham Herald interview with Ellen by clicking here.
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03 / 5
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