Dear BOLD Book Club members,

I'm writing you all to express how wonderful it has been to create a book club that reads BOLD books about childbirth and how sad it is to me that after a recent BOLD strategic planning meeting we have decided to suspend the book club.

Ironically, in the past month our number of BOLD book club members has grown considerably, BOLD's decision to suspend the BOLD club mostly comes from a place of wanting to take a breath in our third year and put energy into our thriving programs. Unfortunately the book club, while successful in number of members, has not had active participation this year in our teleconferences. So instead of devoting staff time to setting these conferences up and having only a few people call in we've decided to take some time to build the book club into a wider long strategy for BOLD and look for funding so the book club gets proper attention. We value your input and would love to hear from you about what you'd like to see happen in the book club. You can email any feedback to boldbookclub@gmail.com.

I started the book club because when I was interviewing mothers about their birth experiences for my play I couldn't believe how many of them had never heard of classic childbirth books. I interviewed educated mothers who were giving birth with midwives and had never heard of Ina May Gaskin! I thought why not create a place where people can get to know these books on an intimate level and speak to the authors.

I still believe in the BOLD Book Club's roots and that there is a need out there for us to exist. In the coming year BOLD will hopefully be able to put more energy into the book club so that it lives on for generations of mothers.

We'll keep this listserv active and please feel free to share with everyone BOLD childbirth books you come across. BOLD will also send you updates about us.

I hope you all can make it to a BOLD event in 2008. This year is gearing up to be quite spectacular with BOLD Performances and Talkbacks already scheduled in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Phoenix, New Jersey, Cinncinati, and Canada. There will even be a French-translated BOLD Performance and Talkback in Paris in May (their Labor Day is May 1st!).

And, since I'm plugging, a paperback edition of my play will be out for Mothers Day this year. (hint: it's a great present!) It includes notes at the end with my reflections on the play. It will be available on Amazon and the BOLD website will link you to how you can purchase it.

Keep being BOLD. It's the only way change happens.

Warmly,
Karen


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Karen Brody
Artistic Director
BOLD
www.birthonlaborday.com
BEBOLD!