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If you're in Iowa City, you'll have to check out the Iowa City Book Festival! Linda Gerdner, author of Grandfather's Story Cloth, will be there on Saturday, July 16 reading and signing her book in the children's tent.

Linda Gerdner Reading & Signing
Iowa City Book Festival
Children's Tent, Gibson Square
Saturday, July 16, 2011
12:20pm

Linda Gerdner, author of Grandfather's Story Cloth, will be speaking at the 2011 Re-SEAing Conference in San Francisco. The conference, devoted to Southeast Asian Studies, will be held at San Francisco State University. This year's theme is "Memories & Visions: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow." It is fitting, therefore, that Linda Gerdner will be speaking about Alzheimer's Disease: Stimulating Remote Memories Though Grandfather's Story Cloth.

More information about the conference:

The third tri-annual interdisciplinary Southeast Asians in the diaspora conference will take place at San Francisco State University. The San Francisco Bay Area is home to sizable populations of Burmese, Cambodian, Filipino, Hmong, Indonesian, Lao, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, and Vietnamese Americans. This conference will foreground the large Southeast Asian American communities of the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and the Pacific Northwest, as well as continue to build momentum and grow just as the Southeast Asian American demographics increase in size and visibility here in the U.S. and in particular, on the West Coast.

The main objectives of this conference are:
· to encourage the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Southeast Asian American peoples and their communities;
· to promote national and international cooperation in the field;
· to establish partnerships between academia and the community.

This two-day conference explores memories (e.g., memories of homeland; memories of war; memories of childhood and growing up American; historical memories; embodied memories; intergenerational memories; technologies of memories; and imagined/created memories) and visions (actual sightings and sites of Southeast Asian Americans and their communities, both real and imaginary). Because this conference takes place after the constitutionally mandated 2010 census, the focus will be on locating/situating Southeast Asian American Studies for the 21st century.

Linda Gerdner, author of Grandfather's Story Cloth, will be speaking at a symposium at the 14th Annual Hmong National Conference on April 3, 2009. She will be giving an individual presentation on her book.

14th Annual Hmong National Conference
April 3, 2009
Appleton Radisson Paper Valley Hotel
Appleton, Wisconsin

March 7, 2009: Linda Gerdner, author of Grandfather's Story Cloth, will speak at the University of Wisconsin at Madison as an invited presenter. She will be talking about the translation of research findings into a Hmong-American children's book to promote understand of persons with Alzheimer's Disease.

The Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul, Minnesota hosted a book reading for Grandfather's Story Cloth on June 11. This was my very first book reading so naturally I was a bit nervous.

The age span of the audience was diverse. The majority were adults but many also brought their children or grandchildren. Because Hmong was the primary language for many attendees, we gave a bilingual reading, with lots of smiles and conversation along the way. As the text was being read, I walked around the room so the corresponding illustrations could be viewed from a closer vantage point. Participants pointed to the rich detail that Stuart has created in these water color paintings, this was especially true of the two-page spread of the story cloth itself and the scene in which Grandfather is burying a silver bar in his garden. Each time, I waited with anticipation and then eyes would rise from the page and give me a broad smile. I interpreted this as a sign of approval.

After the reading I presented the center's library with a copy of Grandfather's Story Cloth. Next, Lia Yang presented me with a beautiful, intricately stitched story cloth that she had made. Next we had refreshments of egg rolls (delicious!!!) and white gourd drink (delightful!). I will forever cherish the new friends that I made that day and the beautiful story cloth stitched by Lia Yang.

I thought it might be fun to share the "story collage" of some of our memories from that day. Find it here.

Scholar and Author Linda Gerdner will read her new Children's book, Grandfather's Story Cloth at the Hmong Cultural Center on June 11, 2008 from 10 AM - Noon in a special event for children and families. Snacks will be served.

Grandfather's Story Cloth Reading June 11, 2008 10AM Hmong Cultural Center 995 University Ave., St. Paul MN