Rethinking Rescue with Carol Mithers

Join us at Village Well Books & Coffee for a fascinating conversation centered around Carol Mithers' new book, Rethinking Rescue: Dog Lady and the Story of America's Forgotten People and Pets.

Mithers will be joined by Samantha Dunn to confront two of the biggest challenges of our time -- poverty and homelessness -- in asking the question, "who deserves the love of a pet?"

About the book:

Rethinking Rescue boldly confronts two of the biggest challenges of our time—poverty and homelessness—in asking the question: Who deserves the love of a pet?

In Los Angeles’s most underserved communities, Lori Weise is known as the Dog Lady, the woman who’s spent decades caring for people in poverty and the animals that love them. Long before anyone else, Weise grasped that animal and human suffering are inextricably connected and created a new rescue narrative: an enduring safety net empowering pet owners and providing resources to reduce the number of pets coming into shelters.

Rethinking Rescue: Dog Lady and the Story of America’s Forgotten People and Pets unites the causes of animal welfare and social justice, moving between Weise’s story and that of the larger U.S. rescue movement. Through captivating storytelling and investigative reporting, Carol Mithers examines the consequences of bias within this overwhelmingly white movement, where an overemphasis on placing animals in affluent homes disregards pet owners in poverty. Weise’s innovative and ultimately triumphant efforts revealed a better way.

As cities across the country witness some of the worst housing crises in history, and as the population of unhoused people and pets continues to skyrocket, Rethinking Rescue offers a story of compassion and hope.

About the participants:

Carol Mithers is a journalist who has written about Los Angeles, women's issues, and extraordinary women for over thirty years. Her work has appeared in The New York Times; Los Angeles Times; LA Weekly; O, the Oprah Magazine; Los Angeles Magazine; More; Town & Country; Architectural Digest; Ladies' Home Journal; Parenting; The Bark; The Nation; California magazine; Buzz; Salon; The Daily Beast; and elsewhere. She is also the author of three books, including Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, written with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee. Mighty was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and has been reprinted in fourteen languages. Mithers lives in Los Angeles, where she has raised three demanding rescue dogs.

Samantha Dunn is the senior editor of premium content for the Southern California News Group, where she produces Bookish, the virtual program on authors and the literary life. Also an author herself, Sam's first novel Failing Paris was a PEN West award finalist, followed by the bestselling memoir, Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life, as well as Faith in Carlos Gomez: A Memoir of Salsa, Sex and Salvation.

Her work is anthologized in a number of places, including the essay anthologies Damage Control, Drinking Diaries, Best American Sex Writing 2004, and the short story anthology, Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles, which she co-edited. She has written for the stage and has taken a few turns screenwriting as a member of the Writers Guild of America. Sam currently teaches nonfiction writing at Chapman University and at the literary nonprofit created by Pam Houston, Writing by Writers. She formerly directed Esalen Writers Camp founded by Cheryl Strayed, and was a longtime memoir instructor at UCLA Writers Program. For nearly a decade she was writer-in-residence at the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College.

Host or Publisher Village Well Books & Coffee