Changing Hands Bookstore

#ArtLitPhx: First Draft Book Club

Superstition Review

Join Changing Hands at First Draft Book Bar (the wine and beer bar inside Changing Hands Phoenix) for a discussion of this month’s pick, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

Stop by Changing Hands Phoenix or Tempe to get your copy of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

Then meet Changing Hands and Arizona Republic reporter Barbara VanDenburgh at First Draft Book Bar to discuss the pick and enjoy HAPPY HOUR prices all through the event.

Sign up for Barbara VanDenburgh’s weekly “Feel Good 5” newsletter here, and join the First Draft Book Club Facebook group here.

ABOUT THE BOOK 

Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. 

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

WHAT IS FIRST DRAFT BOOK CLUB? 
First Draft Book Club is the official book club of First Draft Book Bar – the coffee, beer, and wine bar inside Changing Hands Phoenix. Every month, Arizona Republic reporter Barbara VanDenburgh picks a hot new book and hosts a guided book club discussion.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Wednesday, July 24

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

Buy Book

#ArtLitPhx: Jasmine Guillory’s ‘The Wedding Party’

Superstition Review

The New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Date and The Proposal shares her exhilarating new romance.

Maddie and Theo have two things in common:

1. Alexa is their best friend.
2. They hate each other.

After an “oops, we made a mistake” night together, neither one can stop thinking about the other. With Alexa’s wedding rapidly approaching, Maddie and Theo both share bridal party responsibilities that require more interaction with each other than they’re comfortable with. Underneath the sharp barbs they toss at each other is a simmering attraction that won’t fade. It builds until they find themselves sneaking off together to release some tension when Alexa isn’t looking, agreeing they would end it once the wedding is over. When it’s suddenly pushed up and they only have a few months left of secret rendezvouses, they find themselves regretting that the end is near. Two people this different can’t possibly have a connection other than the purely physical, right?

But as with any engagement with a nemesis, there are unspoken rules that must be abided by. First and foremost, don’t fall in love.

PARKING / LIGHT RAIL

  • Don’t want to drive? Take the Light Rail! It lets off at the Central Avenue/Camelback Park-and-Ride, which has hundreds of free parking spaces across the street from Changing Hands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
Jasmine Guillory is a lawyer, a graduate of Wellesley College and Stanford Law School, and a Bay Area native who lives in Oakland, California. She has been published in The Toast and The Hairpin, has towering stacks of books in her living room, a cake for every occasion, and upwards of fifty lipsticks. She is The New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Date and The Proposal.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Saturday, July 20

Time: 5 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

Buy Book

#ArtLitPhx: Writing Workshop with Stella Pope Duarte

Superstition Review

Workshop Title: Three Easy Steps to Writing a Dynamic Short Story

The American Book Award-winning author of If I Die in Juárez hosts a two-part writing workshop for writers of all levels. 

From the host: “Once upon a time, deep in a great dark forest, lived three bears. The beginning of one of the most beloved fairy tales on earth is about three bears and a little girl named Goldilocks. Stories that become part of our universal experience reveal the human heart. This workshop will zero in on what it means to write a dynamic short story.”

WORKSHOP DETAILS

  • Cost: $40, for two sessions: July 16 and 23.
  • Register below or directly on Eventbrite.
  • Refunds will not be issued within one day of the event.

PARKING / LIGHT RAIL

  • Don’t want to drive? Take the Light Rail! It lets off at the Central Avenue/Camelback Park-and-Ride, which has hundreds of free parking spaces across the street from Changing Hands.

ABOUT THE HOST
Stella Pope Duarte is described by Jacquelyn Mitchard as a “magical weaver with a sure hand and a pure heart,” and praised by Ursula K. Leguin as an author who “will enlarge humanity.” Her works explore the human heart, revealing both dark and light. Duarte has won honors and awards nationwide, including a 2009 American Book Award, a Pulitzer Prize nomination, the Southwest Book of the Year Award, and a nomination to Oprah’s Book Sense list. She is a descendant of Irish and Mexican American parents, and was born and raised in the Sonorita Barrio in South Phoenix. Inspired to write by a prophetic dream of her father, she believes that writing, like love, begins within, or it doesn’t start at all.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Tuesdays, July 16 and 23

Time: 6–8:30 p.m.

Cost: $40

For more information about the event, click here.

Register Here

#ArtLitPhx: Getting That Novel on the Page

Superstition Review

The goal of Desert Sleuths, the Phoenix chapter of Sisters in Crime, is to nurture, encourage, guide, and offer fellowship to new writers.

New writers like you! From the Sleuths: “Maybe you’re one of the thousands of people who would love to write a book but your career has been focused in a non-literary field. Here’s your chance to get the lowdown on how to fulfill your dream of becoming an author. Changing Hands is hosting our presentation of beginning and newly published authors who also had writing dreams. They may have been police officers, service workers, lawyers, office workers, or elementary school teachers. Now they’re involved in putting their stories on paper. A panel of newbie writers will detail how they have gone from dreamer to writer, including Deb J Ledford, an author and professional content editor who has worked extensively with the panelists. Get your questions answered, listen to the writers’ stories, then go home and fire up your computer!

PARKING / LIGHT RAIL

  • Don’t want to drive? Take the Light Rail! It lets off at the Central Avenue/Camelback Park-and-Ride, which has hundreds of free parking spaces across the street from Changing Hands.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION 
Sisters in Crime, a national organization originated in 1986 when best-selling author, Sara Paretsky and several friends wanted to create more support and recognition for women writers. Desert Sleuths was organized in 1992 and boasts an annual membership of 100+. It holds an annual writing conference in September, and bi-annually, in odd-numbers years, publishes an anthology of members’ short mystery stories.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Sunday, July 14

Time: 3 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

#ArtLitPhx: Mind Your Business Book Club

Superstition Review

Introducing “Mind Your Business,” a book club for business leaders, managers, entrepreneurs—anyone interested in the art and science of doing business!

On the second Monday of each month, Javelina CEO Catherine Alonzo leads a discussion of a business book at Changing Hands Phoenix, home of our First Draft Book Bar. Ranging from how to build and scale a business to how to lead a team, you’ll read business book classics as well as new hits. (And get 10% off when you purchase the selection of the month at Changing Hands.)

ABOUT THE BOOK 

Imagine a world where almost everyone wakes up inspired to go to work, feels trusted and valued during the day, then returns home feeling fulfilled. This is not a crazy, idealized notion. Today, in many successful organizations, great leaders create environments in which people naturally work together to do remarkable things. 

In his work with organizations around the world, Simon Sinek noticed that some teams trust each other so deeply that they would literally put their lives on the line for each other. Other teams, no matter what incentives are offered, are doomed to infighting, fragmentation and failure. Why?

The answer became clear during a conversation with a Marine Corps general. “Officers eat last,” he said. Sinek watched as the most junior Marines ate first while the most senior Marines took their place at the back of the line. What’s symbolic in the chow hall is deadly serious on the battlefield: Great leaders sacrifice their own comfort–even their own survival–for the good of those in their care.
     
Too many workplaces are driven by cynicism, paranoia, and self-interest. But the best ones foster trust and cooperation because their leaders build what Sinek calls a “Circle of Safety” that separates the security inside the team from the challenges outside.

Sinek illustrates his ideas with fascinating true stories that range from the military to big business, from government to investment banking.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Monday, July 8

Time: 6:30 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.


#ArtLitPhx: Found in Translation

Superstition Review

This month Changing Hands will discuss Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors.

Whether you’re a seasoned traveler, a voracious reader, or a dreamer who wants to see the world, all are invited to Changing Hand’s newest book club focused on international literature. Sometimes visiting other countries doesn’t always give travelers an insider’s view into foreign cultures; sometimes we are still too outside, too different, to get at the heart of a place. Often the best way to understand distant lands and peoples is to read their literature, to get inside the head of a foreign author, to hear their myths and fairy tales molded around words they penned in their mother tongue.

In Found in Translation, Changing Hands will delve into a work of international literature in a small group setting while enjoying coffee, beer, or wine drinks from First Draft Book Bar, located in Changing Hands Phoenix.

Stop by Changing Hands Phoenix or Tempe (or order online by clicking “add to cart” below) to get your copy of Mirror, Shoulder, Signal for 10% OFF.

Then meet us at First Draft Book Bar to discuss the pick and enjoy happy hour prices all through the event.

FREE PARKING / LIGHT RAIL

  • Don’t want to drive? Take the Light Rail! It lets off at the Central Avenue/Camelback Park-and-Ride, which has hundreds of free parking spaces across the street from Changing Hands.

ABOUT THE BOOK 
Sonja is ready to get on with her life. She’s over forty now, and the Swedish crime novels she translates are losing their fascination. She sees a masseuse, tries to reconnect with her sister, and is finally learning to drive. But under the overbearing gaze of her driving instructor, Sonja is unable to shift gears for herself. And her vertigo, which she has always carefully hidden, has begun to manifest at the worst possible moments.

Sonja hoped her move to Copenhagen years ago would have left rural Jutland in the rearview mirror. Yet she keeps remembering the dramatic landscapes of her childhood—the endless sky, the whooper swans, the rye fields—and longs to go back. But how can she return to a place that she no longer recognizes? And how can she escape the alienating streets of Copenhagen?

In Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, Dorthe Nors brings her distinctive blend of style, humor, and insight to a poignant journey of one woman in search of herself when there’s no one to ask for directions.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Wednesday, July 10

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

#ArtLitPhx: Kimi Eisele Author Event

Superstition Review

What if the end times allowed people to see and build the world anew? This is the landscape that Kimi Eisele creates in her surprising and original debut novel.

Evoking the spirit of such monumental love stories as Cold Mountain and the creative vision of novels like Station Eleven, The Lightest Object in the Universe imagines what happens after the global economy collapses and the electrical grid goes down.

In this new world, Carson, on the East Coast, is desperate to find to Beatrix, a woman on the West Coast who holds his heart. Working his way along a cross-country railroad line, he encounters lost souls, clever opportunists, and those who believe they’ll be saved by an evangelical preacher in the middle of the country. While Carson travels west, Beatrix and her neighbors begin to construct the kind of cooperative community that suggests the end could be, in fact, a bright beginning.

Without modern means of communication, will Beatrix and Carson find their way to each other, and what will be left of the old world if they do? The answers may lie with a fifteen-year-old girl who could ultimately decide the fate of the lovers.

The Lightest Object in the Universe is a moving and hopeful story about resilience and adaptation and a testament to the power of community, where our best traits, born of necessity, can begin to emerge.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
Kimi Eisele is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, Longreads, Orion Magazine, High Country News, and elsewhere. She holds a master’s degree in geography from the University of Arizona, where in 1998 she founded You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography. She has received grants from the Arts Foundation of Southern Arizona, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Kresge Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Tucson and works for the Southwest Folklife Alliance. This is her first novel.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Wednesday, July 10

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information, click here.

#ArtLitPhx: Katrina Shawver Writing Workshop

Superstition Review

Author Katrina Shawver (Henry: A Polish Swimmer’s True Story of Friendship from Auschwitz to America) leads a workshop that covers tools and techniques that apply to all genres to help make your writing easier, polished, and tight.

Take home lists of key resources every writer should have and know. Practice new ideas for faster writing and using active versus passive tense and specificity to “show not tell.” Come prepared to write!

Bring pen/pencil and a notebook for Shawver’s “Expand Your Writer’s Toolbox” presentation.

WORKSHOP DETAILS

  • Cost: $25 per person.
  • Register below.

ABOUT THE HOST
KATRINA SHAWVER is an experienced writer, blogger, speaker, and author of the award-winning biography HENRY: A Polish Swimmer’s True Story of Friendship from Auschwitz to America. She holds a BA from the University of Arizona in English/Political Science and began her writing career by penning columns for the Arizona Republic for more than eleven years. She spent fifteen years researching WWII, Poland, Auschwitz, and the Holocaust to write the story of Henry Zguda, someone she met strictly by chance while writing for the newspaper. HENRY has earned high praise and won awards in the US, UK, and Italy, including the 2018 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award – Silver for Biography.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Monday, June 24

Time: 6:30–8:30 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

Buy Tickets

#ArtLitPhx: Heidi Ganahl of SheFactor

Superstition Review

Join Changing Hands for a talk, Q&A and booksigning with the founder and CEO of the SheFactor.

SheFactor is a book and app that helps young women find their passion, focus on goals, and achieve balance in their personal and professional lives. The book outlines a letter to any woman’s younger self, showing that every path is unique and there is no “right” way to achieve your own form of success. Ganahl doesn’t tell us what to do—she gives a microphone to the inner voice that already knows what to do. The encouragement in the book corresponds to the more tactical accountability that is game-ified in the SheFactor companion app, which readers can use to track each factor in her own life, or locate a mentor or group of friends to help keep her accountable to her new, balanced life goals.

PARKING / LIGHT RAIL

  • Don’t want to drive? Take the Light Rail! It lets off at the Central Avenue/Camelback Park-and-Ride, which has hundreds of free parking spaces across the street from Changing Hands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
Heidi Ganahl founded Camp Bow Wow, a $100 million leader in the pet and franchise industry, which hit the Inc 500/5000 list five years in a row. Her many accolades include being named one of Fortune Magazine’s Top 10 Most Promising Entrepreneurs and winning the 2016 Brave Leader Award. Heidi was elected to the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado and is founder of the Fight Back Foundation. She enjoys spending time at home with her husband and fellow entrepreneur, Jason, her children, Tori, Hollie, Jack, and Jenna, and her White Labrador, Henry.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Friday, June 21

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

#ArtLitPhx: Found in Translation

Superstition Review

Found in Translation: Blood of the Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jimenez

Changing Hands Book Club

found in translation

This month we’ll discuss Blood of the Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jimenez.

Whether you’re a seasoned traveler, a voracious reader, or a dreamer who wants to see the world, all are invited to our newest book club focused on international literature. Sometimes visiting other countries doesn’t always give travelers an insider’s view into foreign cultures; sometimes we are still too outside, too different, to get at the heart of a place. Often the best way to understand distant lands and peoples is to read their literature, to get inside the head of a foreign author, to hear their myths and fairy tales molded around words they penned in their mother tongue.

In Found in Translation, we will delve into a work of international literature in a small group setting while enjoying coffee, beer, or wine drinks from First Draft Book Bar, located in Changing Hands Phoenix.

Stop by Changing Hands Phoenix or Tempe (or order online by clicking “add to cart” below) to get your copy of Blood of the Dawn for 10% OFF.

Then meet us at First Draft Book Bar to discuss the pick and enjoy happy hour prices all through the event.

FREE PARKING / LIGHT RAIL

  • Don’t want to drive? Take the Light Rail! It lets off at the Central Avenue/Camelback Park-and-Ride, which has hundreds of free parking spaces across the street from Changing Hands.

ABOUT THE BOOK 
Blood of the Dawn follows three women whose lives intertwine and are ripped apart during what’s known as “the time of fear” in Peruvian history when the Shining Path militant insurgency was at its peak. The novel rewrites the conflict through the voice of women, activating memory through a mixture of politics, desire, and pain in a lucid and brutal prose.

Claudia Salazar Jimenez (b. 1975, Lima, Peru), critic, scholar, and author, founded PERUFEST, the first Peruvian film festival in New York, where she lives, and won the 2014 Americas Narrative Prize for her debut novel, Blood of the Dawn.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd.,
Phoenix 

Date: Wednesday, June 12

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.