Summer Spotlight Series

2nd Sunday Spotlight Series 2017
Epicure Cafe
11104 Lee Hwy, Fairfax, VA 22030
5:OOPM Show/Doors Open 4:30PM
$10 Tickets at Door

September 10th – Jessica Robinson

Tech Babies – Babymaking in the Modern Age
September 10th – Jessica Robinson

Who knew trying to make a baby, being pregnant and giving birth could be so difficult? Join Jessica Robinson on a journey that, predictably, starts in a bedroom, but quickly takes a detour through a laboratory, new and different areas of the hospital, as well as a few specialized medical practices along the way. All that, just to make a baby.

Jessica Robinson is the founder of Better Said Than Done. Jessica has performed stories for Story District, TEDx, Tales in the Village, The Grapevine, Stories in the Round, Perfect Liars Club and George Mason University’s Fall for the Book Festival, and at such venues as Jammin’ Java, Epicure Café, Franklin Park Performing Arts Center, The Auld Shebeen, Town DanceBoutique, and Dance Place. She has been a regular commentator on WAMU, DC’s NPR station. Her personal story, “The Game,” was published in the short story collection Sucker for Love, her story “What Are the Odds” was published in The Northern Virginia Review, Volume 29, and “The Talk” is included in the anthology Roar: True Tales of Women Warriors. She is the author of the urban fantasy novel Caged, published in 2016 and is currently writing the sequel.

Arlington National Cemetery: My Forever Home
August 13th – Ellouise Schoettler

An Uncommon View of Arlington’s Hallowed Grounds, Where Honoring Service, History, and Family Stories Blend.

“My husband, Jim Schoettler, who served as a Flight Surgeon and Physician, USAF, was buried in Arlington August 1, 2012 with a full honors ceremony. When my time comes, Arlington National Cemetery will also be my “forever home” so I set out to learn all I can about this historic, honored and sacred place before I move in to our forever neighborhood.”

Arlington National Cemetery: My Forever Home has been performed at the Women in The Military Memorial in Arlington and at the Capital Fringe, Washington, DC. Schoettler has also told it in Georgia, California, Maryland, and Tennessee.

Maryland spoken word artist and octogenarian Ellouise Schoettler is a 30 year storytelling veteran. She blends personal experience, family memories, and history into programs to give voices to ordinary people. She tells her original one hour story-programs coast to coast for adult and youth audiences at varied venues including festivals, colleges, libraries and genealogical societies. Since 2010 Ellouise has introduced 5 one-woman shows at the Capital Fringe. Ellouise hosts two storytelling shows on Montgomery Municipal Cable TV.com, Channel 16, Stories in Focus and Stories in Time.

Currently she is touring across Maryland telling Ready to Serve, an unknown story of 64 Maryland Nurses who served in France with the Johns Hopkins Base Hospital #18 during World War One. www.wwonenurses.weebly.com.

For more information visit www.ellouiseschoettler.com

So Both Shall Live  
June 11th – Susan Gordon

In this performance, So Both Shall Live, Susan Gordon has turned her attention to the often fraught mother-daughter relationship. She tells of four generations of determined and fiery women in her matrilineal line, paying greatest attention to her relationship with her mother and with her daughters. She tells the truth of their struggles fearlessly while noting every small triumph on the way.

Susan Gordon is a storyteller, published poet and a prose writer of memoir and fiction. She is a skilled teller of traditional tales and has taught storytelling in colleges, universities and from the barn on her farm. Susan is now telling personal stories that explore the weave of relationships in her life. She hosts the Hilltop Writers, is asked to read her poetry in a range of settings, and offers a series of house concerts from her home. Susan has a master’s degree in narrative therapies and lives with her dog, River, on a farm in Ijamsville, Maryland

No More Helen Keller Jokes
July 9th – Anne Thomas

Hitchhiking across Europe by herself at the age of 18, Anne went to sleep in the back of a car and woke up on the side of the road.  It was cold and rainy.  She tried to get up to see what was wrong, but she couldn’t move.  She couldn’t feel her legs or her torso. Back in the states, a phalanx of doctors in dour white faces told her, “Your spinal cord is broken.  You are now paralyzed.  You will never walk again.  You will have no sensation below your chest and you will have no bowel or bladder control.  Any question?”  A time when there are no curb cuts, ramps or handicap bathrooms.

Join Anne on her journey from tragedy to triumph as she pursues her life with gusto, seeks love, adventure and travels the world.

Anne Thomas is the 2013 National Storytelling Festival Slam Champion. Her storytelling has been featured on national US storytelling programs such as The Moth, Storycorps, and RISK!. She has been published in the New York Times and is a contributor to the book, Sucker For Love. Anne spent most of her career as a civil rights attorney, conflict resolution expert, and leadership development innovator. You can learn more about Anne at her website, annebthomas.com.