A Room of One's Own is thrilled to welcome local author and writing instructor Susanna Daniel for a talk on craft in celebration of her new novel Girlfriending (Pub February 10th, 2026).
This talk is called Writing From Life: How I Turned a Year of Dating into a Novel.
Writing from life often sends writers into tailspins that exist purely in our imaginations. What if X reads Y and thinks Z? How can I convey A without putting myself in B’s crosshairs? But when we free ourselves to blur fact with fiction while mitigating gratuitous damage, not only do we find our strongest voice, we also honor and elevate our personal stories.
Many people have asked Susanna why she pitched Girlfriending as fiction or auto-fiction and not memoir, and the answer is simple: Because it’s not all true.
And sometimes, that’s how we want to write our stories.
Bring a friend, your favorite ex-roommate, your book club buddy, or the person who always knows the right thing to say after a bad date. This is the kind of night made for sharing.
On February 12 at 7 p.m., @susannadaniel1975 joins the #WIBookFest to talk about GIRLFRIENDING, her lively and heartfelt novel about friendship, reinvention, and figuring things out as we go, in conversation with @csittenfeld. Start the evening early at 6 p.m. with a Book and Mocktail Pairing by @madisonpubliclibrary and @blueplatecatering, then settle in for a story about starting over, finding community, and asking big questions about where life is taking us.
Join us for Galentine’s Night Out on Wednesday, February 11th, from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM, an evening dedicated to connection, creativity, and community!
All books start somewhere.
Maybe you have little more than a vague idea, an opening image, or a character or subject.
Together, we’ll grow your seedling into a first scene, a series of actionable steps, and a map to the finish line.
