We are excited to welcome Michelle Bear from the Edmonds Bookshop as our first speaker this year. Bear will be sharing with us the Bookshop’s favorite reads for book clubs to read this year.

Bob Frause has led an interesting life, spending over 30 years creating ad campaigns, developing public relations events and producing award-winning programs for a diverse clientele, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is also an author, and has written a photo memoir chronicling a cattle drive he took that had been pitched to National Geographic, A Drive Out of Winter. Mr. Frause is an entertaining speaker, and we are excited to follow along on this week-long trail he took from Montana to Wyoming in 1972.

Columnist and author Jennifer Bardsley will be our featured speaker for this year’s Foremother’s Luncheon. Bardsley’s column, I Brake for Moms, has appeared in the Everett Herald every week for the last ten years. She also writes young adult paranormal romance under the pen name Louise Cypress. A graduate of Stanford University, Bardsley resides in Edmonds, WA with her husband and two children. According to her website, when she isn’t writing books or camping with her Girl Scout troop, you can find her walking from her house to the beach every chance she gets.

Pint & Dale, a local musical and story-telling group, has a large following across the United States and abroad. They blend traditional and modern music to reflect the immense vitality of those who live and work on the sea. Their music is rich with the myth, narrative, rhythm, rhyme and lyric associated with the days of the tall ships, yet fits into the world of modern folk, rock and popular song.

Originally from Issaquah, Washington, she studied English and journalism at Washington State University, wrote for newspapers in the Pacific Northwest, and wrote creatively on her own. From 1999-2000, she worked in Switzerland as a writer/editor. She joined the graduate program at Texas Tech University in 2003, completing her PhD in creative nonfiction in 2006. Her essays, articles, fiction, and poetry have appeared in various journals, while her creative nonfiction book published by Texas Tech University Press Texas Dance Halls: A TWO-STEP CIRCUITwas released in September 2007. Her nature-themed memoir LIGHT IN THE TREES is, also from Texas Tech University Press, was released in 2016. Gail writes and teaches in the Seattle area.

These two authors write hilarious contemporary fiction that crosses the book club fiction/contemporary fiction/romance genres, and they’re outstanding speakers. Their 2022 title, NEVER MEANT TO MEET YOU, is about an unlikely friendship between neighbors. Their 2023 title, THE BETTER HALF, will be published by Mindy’s Book Studio, the new imprint we have in partnership with Mindy Kaling”

We are pleased to welcome National Best Seller and local author Erica Bauermeister as our Spring Tea Speaker. Bauermeister’s books have been published in over 25 languages and have made The New York Times’ Best Seller List. Her 2020 book, The Scent Keeper, was chosen as a Reese’s Book Club pick. When asked what she likes to write about, Bauermeister said: “I write about the subliminal, the things we don’t pay attention to—the food we cook, our sense of smell, the houses we live in, the rituals and fears in our lives. I write about connection and disconnection and serendipity. But most of all, I write about compassion—because it is what helps us see everything else.”