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The return of our Book Talk series continues with Ann Martin Ridings on November 19th with her new book A Woven Woman!
When: Thursday, November 19th
Time: 5:30-7 PM
Where: The Stockton Market, 19 Bridge Street, Stockton, NJ 08559
Price: FREE, sign-ups required
A writer and visual artist, Ridings’ in her debut book explores memory, identity, and the inner lives of women.
At this FREE event, immerse yourself in readings from the book, take part in a Q+A, and enjoy light fare (available for purchase). This is a FREE event, but sign-ups are required! Light fare available for purchase, and we are BYOB.
About the book, from the publisher: “After raising five sons, Ridings finds herself alone for the first time in decades. The rhythms that once defined her days fall away, leaving a silence that is at once disorienting and revelatory.
Rather than rushing to fill it, she turns toward it. From the stillness of her home—and most often from the quiet gravity of her couch—she begins a process of excavation of motherhood, of the self she set aside and the self that remains. Trained as a painter, Ridings brings a distinctly visual sensibility to the page. Moments are layered like brushstrokes; objects become entry points; memory unfolds not as chronology, but as composition.
Paintings created during her child-rearing years reappear as “silent witnesses,” guiding her back to earlier versions of herself and illuminating the inner life that persisted beneath the surface of daily care.
A Woven Woman resists traditional narrative structure. Inspired by the Japanese diary form nikki bungaku, Ann’s story unfolds through a series of essays, poems, and reflections that gather into a cohesive emotional whole. Drawing on evocative concepts such as saudade (a deep, enduring longing), anamnesis (what the soul already knows), and wabi-sabi (the beauty of impermanence), Ridings gives language to emotional terrain that is rarely articulated but widely felt.
At a time when conversations around identity, caregiving, and midlife are shifting, A Woven Woman offers something quieter and more enduring: a model of attention. Ridings doesn’t prescribe reinvention. Instead, she demonstrates the power of stillness, reflection, and creative return, suggesting that what comes next is not invented, but uncovered.”
The return of our Book Talk series continues with Ann Martin Ridings on November 19th with her new book A Woven Woman!
When: Thursday, November 19th
Time: 5:30-7 PM
Where: The Stockton Market, 19 Bridge Street, Stockton, NJ 08559
Price: FREE, sign-ups required
A writer and visual artist, Ridings’ in her debut book explores memory, identity, and the inner lives of women.
At this FREE event, immerse yourself in readings from the book, take part in a Q+A, and enjoy light fare (available for purchase). This is a FREE event, but sign-ups are required! Light fare available for purchase, and we are BYOB.
About the book, from the publisher: “After raising five sons, Ridings finds herself alone for the first time in decades. The rhythms that once defined her days fall away, leaving a silence that is at once disorienting and revelatory.
Rather than rushing to fill it, she turns toward it. From the stillness of her home—and most often from the quiet gravity of her couch—she begins a process of excavation of motherhood, of the self she set aside and the self that remains. Trained as a painter, Ridings brings a distinctly visual sensibility to the page. Moments are layered like brushstrokes; objects become entry points; memory unfolds not as chronology, but as composition.
Paintings created during her child-rearing years reappear as “silent witnesses,” guiding her back to earlier versions of herself and illuminating the inner life that persisted beneath the surface of daily care.
A Woven Woman resists traditional narrative structure. Inspired by the Japanese diary form nikki bungaku, Ann’s story unfolds through a series of essays, poems, and reflections that gather into a cohesive emotional whole. Drawing on evocative concepts such as saudade (a deep, enduring longing), anamnesis (what the soul already knows), and wabi-sabi (the beauty of impermanence), Ridings gives language to emotional terrain that is rarely articulated but widely felt.
At a time when conversations around identity, caregiving, and midlife are shifting, A Woven Woman offers something quieter and more enduring: a model of attention. Ridings doesn’t prescribe reinvention. Instead, she demonstrates the power of stillness, reflection, and creative return, suggesting that what comes next is not invented, but uncovered.”