Poets Elizabeth Herron and Rebecca Lawton will be at Readers' Books on Sunday, September 10th for a reading at 11 a.m. and a poetry workshop at 1 p.m. Elizabeth Herron, the Sonoma County Poet Laureate, will be reading from her latest book, "In the Cities of Sleep" and Rebecca Lawton will be reading from her work, "Swimming Grand Canyon". 

The Being Brave Poetry Workshop gently guides participants to transmute feelings of fear into talismans of courage. There's no pressure here—writers are able to share their work, or not. Starting with a free writing session and culminating in the creation of a Pocket Poem, the workshop provides the space to use joyful creative control to find moments of bravery. 

Because the space for the workshop is limited; for sign-up information, please email: ehsocopoetlaureate@gmail.com While there is not a charge for the workshop, the poets ask that participants consider purchasing their books during the event.

Elizabeth Herron is the author of four previous books of poetry: Insistent Grace (from Fernwood Press) and most recently In the Cities of Sleep (also from Fernwood); The Poet’s House; Desire Being Full of Distances; and five chapbooks. She also writes articles about the importance of natural systems in the well-being of all life. Her work has appeared in Reflections, North American Review, West Marin Review, Free State Review, Comstock Review and Parabola, and is included in Face to Face: Women Writing on Faith, Mysticism and Awakening; Fire and Rain, Ecopoetry of California; and What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be. The Mesa Refuge for Writers, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Foundation for Deep Ecology have supported her work. She is a Fellow of the International League of Conservation Writers and lives with her husband in Northern California where she is the Poet Laureate of Sonoma County (2022 to 2024).

Rebecca Lawton is an author, fluvial geologist, and former Grand Canyon river guide. She has published hundreds of essays, poems, and stories, in Hunger Mountain, Orion, Terrain.org, Writers on the Range, and many other journals. Her writing honors include a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair, Ellen Meloy Award for Desert Writers, Pushcart Prize nominations, and residencies at Hedgebrook Retreat for Women Writers, the Island Institute, and PLAYA. Her recent books include the Rubery Prize shortlisted What I Never Told You: Stories (2022), Swimming Grand Canyon and Other Poems (2021), and Nautilus Award winning The Oasis This Time: Living and Dying with Water in the West (2019). She lives on an ephemeral stream in northern California steelhead country and is writing about the heroine’s journey through the lens of a whitewater boatwoman.