Tour stop #6. It was so very meaningful to speak about my book in the neighborhood where our kids grew up and much of the story takes place.
Long Beach, our home for the last 25 years, has been kind and generous to us. Kind in its tolerant attitudes affirming all identities, and with its signature live-and-let-live lifestyle. Generous in providing an opportunity to establish a home, make friends, raise a family, and partake of its resources like schools, libraries, and Jewish communal institutions. And weather, what other place can beat it?
So in this talk, I focused not only on the foster-adoption and LGBTQ family angles of A Family, Maybe, but also on its local aspect, as in what makes it a Long Beach story, a story representative of local culture and communities.
We had a great turnout, and I was delighted to see many familiar faces in the crowd.
The event was part of this month’s Bixby Knolls’ First Fridays programming, so the evening progressed naturally from my talk and book signing into HSLB’s open house for the people streaming in from Atlantic Boulevard while strolling the First Fridays.
Unfortunately, the talk moderator, Gerrie Schipske, the two-time Long Beach City Councilmember and author, couldn’t make it due to a family emergency, but I am grateful to her for helping to produce this event.
Thank you, the Historical Society of Long Beach for hosting my book talk, Long Beach Living for profiling it among the weekly events, and Bixby Knolls BIA for helping to spread the word about the event.
Lane Igoudin | Author, Professor, Dad 