Abi Maxwell - One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman: A Mother's Story
Schedule
Tue Sep 17 2024 at 06:30 pm
Location
45 S Main St, Concord, NH, United States, New Hampshire 03301 | Concord, NH
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Tuesday, September 17th, 2024, 6:30 pmNew Hampshire novelist Abi Maxwell returns to Gibson's Bookstore with a deeply personal book about her family, with One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman: A Mother's Story. Maxwell will be joined in conversation by Heidi Carrington Heath of Seacoast Outright!.
A fiery, heartbreaking, riveting memoir that follows one New Hampshire family over the course of three years, unspooling a story of gender identity, class, trans youth, and a child caught in the riptide of America’s culture wars
Abi Maxwell grew up in rural New Hampshire, one of eight kids in a poor town abutting a wealthier lakeside village. As a young couple, Maxwell and her husband planned not to have kids, but when Maxwell became pregnant, she knew she wanted to raise her child near the mountains and lake of her youth. When her six-year-old, who was known to the world as a boy, asks to wear pink sneakers, asks to be a witch for Halloween, asks to wear a girl’s dance costume, Abi worries about how their small community will react. But when that child changes her name, grows her hair long, and announces that she is a girl, a firestorm engulfs the family.
Weaving together the story of her own youth, marked by long afternoons skiing the mountains, a cottage on the lake, and a proud gay brother, but also by neglect and bullying that pushed her brother to the brink, Abi Maxwell contends with the rural America where she was raised and, years later, where she is now raising her daughter, as lawmakers nationwide push to erase the very existence of trans youth. Intimate and stirring, this book is essential reading for this moment in our history.
About the author: Abi Maxwell is the author of the novels Lake People and The Den. After graduating from the writing program at the University of Montana, she spent many years working in public libraries, and she now works as a high school librarian. She is a dedicated advocate for the rights of transgender youth in her state and frequently testifies in front of the legislature on their behalf.
About the moderatore: Heidi Carrington Heath (she/her) is the Executive Director of Seacoast Outright, the state's oldest LGBTQ+ org, and the only one with a dedicated focus on LGBTQ+ youth. She is also an avid reader, a sometimes moderator for Exeter LitFest, and never without a pile of books on her nightstand. Heidi shares her life with her spouse, Heath, and their two very precocious ginger cats, Moxie and Windsor.
Can't make this event? Order the book through the Gibson's Bookstore website and we'll have Abi sign it at her event! Please put your signing/personalization requests in your order comments at checkout.
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Where is it happening?
45 S Main St, Concord, NH, United States, New Hampshire 03301Event Location & Nearby Stays:
