Debut When It’s Right For You: A panel on publishing later in life

With Carla Stockton & Laurie Spigel

Wednesday, November 13, 7 PM, Free to attend 
​​​​​​​Adirondack Center for Writing (15 Broadway, Saranac Lake, NY 12983) 

Join Saranac Lake graduate Carla Stockton and her colleague Laurie Spigel – both female authors who published their first books after age 50 – for a discussion on publishing, feminism, educating children at home and in schools, and smalltown/city living. Each author will share a brief excerpt of their latest work and then we’ll have a panel discussion, so bring your questions! 

Books will be for sale at the event, including Stockton’s brand new memoir, Too Much of Nothing: Notes on Feminism, Identity, and Womanhood. Stockton, a first-generation American boomer, recounts her life as a series of vignettes that begin with her mother’s escape from Europe before WWII and end with her own escape from a stultifying marriage. Stockton’s story is a meditation on the meaning of survival, the importance of family, and the power of self-discovery. With humor and heart, she explores the challenges and triumphs of a life lived in the shadow of history.

Laurie Block Spigel is an author and educator specializing in game-based, student-centered learning for all ages. Laurie homeschooled her children in New York City, where she taught popular classes and created the informational website HomeschoolNYC. Her book, Education Uncensored: A Guide for the Aspiring, the Foolhardy and the Disillusioned (2006), is part memoir and part homeschooling guide, explains what’s wrong with America’s school system and offers an overview of education. Her new book, Letting Them Lead: Adventures in Game-based Self-Directed Learning, chronicles years of improvisational teaching with groups of homeschoolers in elementary, middle and high school. Laurie shares personal insights and honed techniques in her stories, as well as curriculum created for and with her students. Laurie currently lives with her husband and cat in Maine; she continues to write, teach, and advocate for homeschooling and game-based, personalized education. Learn more at laurieblockspigel.com.

Carla Stockton, a proud 1965 graduate of Saranac Lake (now Central) High School,  will celebrate her fiftieth anniversary of parenthood this year and has been teaching in various capacities for nearly as long.  Her writing has been featured in publications such as Moment Magazine, The Toast, The Guardian, and others. Her translation of King Gordogan, by Croatian surrealist playwright Radovan Ivsic was produced twice in Arizona and was featured in a broadcast on Trafika Europe Radio. With Bagel Fish Productions, she co-wrote and co-produced a number of screenplays and short films, including “G-Spots?,” a deconstruction of the Wife of Bath’s Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer.  A former High School Drama director and English teacher, presently an adjunct professor at Lehman College in the Bronx, Stockton holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction and literary translation from Columbia University and is currently at work on her second work of nonfiction and a YA historical fiction. She is the mother of three wonderful adults and the grandmother of three future adults.  You can follow her on carlastockton.me or on her Medium site.