Titled “Womentum, Valley Bookstore launch Women’s Empowerment Book Club” Jackson Hole News & Guide Contributor Tibby Plasse highlights Womentum’s new Women’s Empowerment Book Club in January, 2023.
January 18, 2023
Womentum, the Jackson Hole nonprofit that seeks to connect and inspire women leaders, is teaming up with Valley Bookstore to share stories about female power, courage and resilience with a new Women’s Empowerment Book Club.
The idea for the book club came from an introduction made by Elisabeth Rohrbach, who was at the time the membership director for the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce and is now the board chair for Womentum, a few weeks before Lindsey Vonn’s book signing at Valley Bookstore last February.
Wendy Dodson was the “relatively new owner of the bookstore and has been wanting to do more community outreach,” said Samantha Eddy, executive director of Womentum. “We then started brainstorming about community connection opportunities for Wendy … and suggested the possibility of a potential collaboration. It took a little bit of time to get to the point of making something come to fruition, but we did.”
“I have always wanted to be part of a book club,” Dodson said, “and have heard that from our customers, too. So I thought of Womentum, since that is an incredible group of women with whom I want to spend time. Samantha’s idea was to have different genres of books so we could be as inclusive to people’s interests but hopefully to expand reading interest, too.”
Dodson said her vision for the store is as a gathering place for the community to discuss important topics and discover new ideas.
“We wanted to partner with Womentum since we admire their worthy mission and exceptional leadership,” she said. “Anyone affiliated with Womentum cares about community and female empowerment. It seems fitting since Valley Bookstore is female owned and operated — our whole team is women.”
Eddy and Dodson agreed that wintertime was the ideal time to launch. They are looking forward to seeing how the series format plays out for future planning as well as which selections resonate most with the readers.
“I’m really excited about sort of having a nonfiction series,” Eddy said, “which is something that makes it especially meaningful.”
The first club meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. Jan. 25 to discuss Julia Boorstin’s “When Women Lead.”
Boorstin’s book about women’s leadership is fresh off the press. The CNBC senior media and tech correspondent brings together the stories of over 60 female CEOs and leaders with a combination of narrative and research to reveal how once-underestimated characteristics such as vulnerability, gratitude and divergent thinking can be vital superpowers.
“I have been reading quite a bit about it,” Eddy said, “and what are often considered soft skills, the more female skills, are what has helped these leaders that Julia Boorstin wrote about, and about how often women who are super highly successful business leaders are doing it in a way that’s unique to women as opposed to trying to do it in a way that men do.”
For the March 8 gathering, Eddy and Dodson have selected Katherine May’s memoir “Wintering.”
Nominated for the Porchlight Prize for Best Personal Development and Human Behaviour Book and the 2020 Wainwright Prize for U.K. nature writing, “Wintering” recounts the author’s year of uncertainty and seclusion prompted by a family illness and her perspective-shifting relationship with the natural world.
For April 26 the club will discuss “Black Cake,” Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel about two estranged siblings who inherit the choices of a Caribbean matriarch and try to answer the question “If we can’t choose what we receive, can we choose what we become?”
People can sign up for one, two or all three books.
“Hopefully, this will be something that continues to move forward,” Eddy said.
Valley Bookstore offers a 10% discount on the three titles (mention you are a book club member) and will donate 10% of the sales of the books to Womentum. The sign-up form for the club can be found at WomentumWY.org.
The East Broadway bookstore can accommodate 50 people, and Eddy said she already has 20 people signed up.