Schedule
8:30am: Registration
9:30am - 12:00pm: Breakout Sessions, Exhibit Booths and Shopping Area
12:00pm - 1:30pm: Lunch with Keynote Speaker
Keynote Speaker
Author Sarah Bird
Nationally-acclaimed author, screenwriter, and journalist Sarah Bird has written eight novels-- her most recent 2011’s The Gap Year-- as well as screenplays for television and film and numerous magazine articles, including a regular column for Texas Monthly.
The product of an Air Force “Catholic family of eight,” Bird earned a BA degree from the University of New Mexico in 1973, before relocating to Austin, where she earned a Masters degree in journalism at the University of Texas. Her first published novel, Do Evil Cheerfully, was a mystery, but she has gained national notoriety through humorous novels drawing on her life experiences.
The Gap Year, based on her experiences with a college-bound son, is a comical and poignant story about a single mom and her seventeen-year-old daughter learning about the process of letting go in that precarious moment before college empties the nest.
Named “Best Local Author” by the Austin Chronicle and recipient of the prestigious Johnston Dobie Paisano Fellowship, she lives in Austin with her husband George Jones, and son, Gabriel.
Survivor Speaker
Mary Mandel
As a busy young career woman with an over the top schedule, Mary Mandel never took the time to think about heart disease. And so she paid no attention to the warning signs of a heart attack. But that heart attack, sustained in her early 30’s, created a range of problems that nearly took her life. Come hear the inspiring story of a survivor determined to find balance in her life while helping other women reduce their risk.
