An Author Event with Lidia Yuknavitch & Monica Drake | The Big M
March 14 | 4:30pm – 6:00pm
Tickets | $20
Please register in advance; walk-ins welcome as space allows
Hoffman Center for the Arts | 594 Laneda Avenue | Manzanita
Please join us in celebration of Women’s History Month for a special event with award-winning authors, Lidia Yuknavitch and Monica Drake, to kick off the 2026 Manzanita Writers Series.
Lidia and Monica will be reading from their newly-released anthology The Big M: 13 Writers Take Back the Story of Menopause (Grand Central Publishing, January 27, 2026). Reclaiming the story of menopause, this is a new story, told on their own terms and a long overdue reckoning.
Exploring themes of freedom and mortality, sexuality and the patriarchy, The Big M is a chorus of voices, each writer navigating the profound changes in their bodies and lives in their own fiercely individual way. Funny, subversive, insightful, and deeply human, these stories form a living constellation—one you might take into your life in times of duress, transformation, or awakening.
Lidia and Monica will read from their works, and open to Q&A from the audience.
Following their presentation, a book signing reception with the authors will be held at Cloud & Leaf Bookstore from 6:00-7:00pm. Cloud & Leaf is located at 447 Laneda Avenue, three blocks west of the Hoffman Center for the Arts.
About the Authors:
Lidia Yuknavitch is the National Bestselling author of four novels: Thrust, The Book of Joan, Dora: A Headcase, and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Awards Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the OBA Reader’s Choice Award. She has also published a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). The Misfit’s Manifesto, a book based on her recent TED Talk, was published by TED Books in 2017. Verge, a collection of short fiction, was released in 2020. Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader’s Choice. Her newest memoir, Reading the Waves, was published by Riverhead books in 2025.
She has also had writing appear in publications including Guernica Magazine, Ms., The Iowa Review, Zyzzyva, Another Chicago Magazine, The Sun, Exquisite Corpse, TANK, and in the anthologies Life As We Show It (City Lights), Wreckage of Reason (Spuytin Duyvil), Forms at War (FC2), Feminaissance (Les Figues Press), and Representing Bisexualities (SUNY), as well as online at The Rumpus.
She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She is a very good swimmer. For more information, visit Lidia’s website.
Monica Drake is a fiction writer known for her novels, Clown Girl and The Stud Book and her collection of linked stories, The Folly of Loving Life.
Clown Girl was a finalist for the 2007 Ken Kesey Award for the Novel through the Oregon Book Awards.
Her essays and short work have appeared in The Paris Review, New York Times’ “Modern Love” column, The Rumpus, Longreads, Oregon Humanities Magazine and other publications. She is also the author of a significant essay, published anonymously on Longreads, which went viral and inspired cultural conversations about divorce court, marriage and life as a woman author.
She is a graduate of the University of Arizona’s MFA program in creative writing and was a recipient of the John Weston award.
Currently living in Portland, OR, Monica offers workshops, consulting and manuscript support. For more information, visit Monica’s website.
Please direct any questions about this event to:Â [email protected]
March 14, 2026 – Author Event – Main Room
Address:
Description:
Situated on the main street in Manzanita just a few blocks west of Highway 101, the Hoffman Center is located across the street from the North Tillamook Library.
