AUTHOR EVENT SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2:00—4:00 PM
HER BEAUTIFUL BRAIN
by
Ann Hedreen
Griffin Bay Bookstore is proud to present Ann Hedreen and her wise and honest memoir—Her Beautiful Brain. Anyone who is caring for a loved one with dementia or has lost someone precious to the ravages of Alzheimer’s, plan on meeting and talking with the Seattle author and filmmaker on Saturday, November 28, 2:00—4:00 pm. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from a most compassionate writer.
Her Beautiful Brain is Ann Hedreen’s story of what it was like to become a mom just as her beautiful, brainy mother began to lose her mind to an unforgiving disease. Arlene was a copper miner’s daughter who was divorced twice, widowed once, raised six kids singlehandedly, survived the turbulent ‘60s, and got her B.A. and M.A. at 40 so she could support her family as a Seattle schoolteacher, only to start showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease in her late fifties, taking Ann and her siblings on a long descent they never could have anticipated or imagined.
For two decades―as Ann married, had a daughter and a son, navigated career changes and marital crises, and built a life making documentary films with her husband―she watched her once-invincible mom disappear. From Seattle to Haiti to the mine-gouged Finntown neighborhood in Butte, Montana where she was born and grew up; from Arlene’s favorite tennis club to a locked geropsychiatric ward, Her Beautiful Brain tells the heartbreaking story of a daughter’s love for a mother who is lost in the wilderness of an unpredictable and harrowing illness.
“A book that will be read and loved by anyone who, watching a parent slip away, has struggled to make sense of this loss.” --Ruth Ozeki
About the Author
Ann Hedreen is a writer, filmmaker, teacher, and voice of the radio podcast and the blog, The Restless Nest. She teaches memoir writing twice a year at Seattle Central Colleg Ann and her husband Rustin Thompson own White Noise Productions and together have made more than 100 documentary films, including Quick Brown Fox: an Alzheimer’s Story. Ann and Rustin have two grown children and live in south Seattle. Ann has a BA from Wellesley College, an MFA from Goddard College and is an alumna of the Hedgebrook retreat for women writers. She is on the Marketing and Communications Committee of the Alzheimer’s Association’s Washington state chapter, is a member of Women in Film Seattle and is a volunteer tutor with Horn of Africa Services. Her writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, The Seattle Times, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, Minerva Rising and many other publications.
