This program is being offered in a virtual format. In order to participate, register by clicking the RSVP button above or by emailing olivia@smithcenter.org. 

with Kiersten Gallagher

Welcome to “Pop-Up Book Club,” a community of book lovers diving into current and relevant book material.

We will read The Power of Meaning – Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness by Emily Esfahani Smith and on August 13th, Kiersten Gallagher will lead us in a lively discussion about the book. Please join us no matter how much or little of the book you have read. You are welcome to join even if you have not read the book.

Pop-Up Book Club will be held from 12:00-1:00pm ET.

Please read below for a description of the book from Amazon below:

In a culture obsessed with happiness, this wise, stirring book points the way toward a richer, more satisfying life.

Too many of us believe that the search for meaning is an esoteric pursuit—that you have to travel to a distant monastery or page through dusty volumes to discover life’s secrets. The truth is, there are untapped sources of meaning all around us—right here, right now.

To explore how we can craft lives of meaning, Emily Esfahani Smith synthesizes a kaleidoscopic array of sources—from psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists to figures in literature and history such as George Eliot, Viktor Frankl, Aristotle, and the Buddha. Drawing on this research, Smith shows us how cultivating connections to others, identifying and working toward a purpose, telling stories about our place in the world, and seeking out mystery can immeasurably deepen our lives.

To bring what she calls the four pillars of meaning to life, Smith visits a tight-knit fishing village in the Chesapeake Bay, stargazes in West Texas, attends a dinner where young people gather to share their experiences of profound loss, and more. She also introduces us to compelling seekers of meaning—from the drug kingpin who finds his purpose in helping people get fit to the artist who draws on her Hindu upbringing to create arresting photographs. And she explores how we might begin to build a culture that leaves space for introspection and awe, cultivates a sense of community, and imbues our lives with meaning.

Inspiring and story-driven, The Power of Meaning will strike a profound chord in anyone seeking a life that matters.

Get a copy of The Power of Meaning <HERE>

About Kiersten Gallagher

Kiersten has served as the Cancer Support Program Director for Smith Center since 2014. Before coming to Smith Center, she had the privilege to serve individuals and families living with cancer at Wellness House of Annapolis. Kiersten aims to offer programs to reduce stress and help participants to see the world we live in from different perspectives. She thoroughly enjoys facilitating yoga, visual arts, and writing programs at Smith Center and encourages gentle movement and creativity in the healing process. Kiersten is a certified yoga instructor through Yoga Alliance and also has her YCAT (Yoga Therapy in Cancer and Chronic Illness) Professional Certification through the Integral Yoga Academy. She has completed Patient Navigation training through Smith Center’s Institute for Integrative Oncology Navigation and has also completed the Commonweal Healing Circles: Advanced Cancer Support Training. Kiersten is also certified in CLIMB® (Children’s Lives Include Moments of Bravery) a program that aims to build upon the strengths of children and increase his/her ability to cope with stress associated with a parent’s illness; Compassion Cultivation Training – CCT™ an 8-week program developed at Stanford University, with insights and techniques from psychology, neuroscience, and contemplative practice; Mind Over Matter a 5-session program that uses evidence based strategies to help decrease feelings of anxiety and depression and increase a sense of well-being, and she is also a certified herbalist and holds her Reiki Level One certification. She believes in a holistic approach to healing, human relationships and is grateful for each and every day. In her spare time, you may find Kiersten laughing with friends, cycling, taking art classes, practicing yoga and spending time with her husband Shane, son Liam, dogs Pablo and Beans, and turtle Chip.

This program is being offered in a hybrid format (both in-person and virtual). In order to participate, register by clicking the RSVP button above or by emailing olivia@smithcenter.org. If you plan to attend in-person, please let us know.

with Elizabeth McGowan

Welcome to “Pop-Up Book Club,” a community of book lovers diving into current and relevant book material.

We will read Outpedaling “The Big C:” My Healing Cycle Across America by Pulitzer Prize Winner Elizabeth McGowan and on April 9th, she will lead us in a lively discussion about the book. Please join us no matter how much or little of the book you have read. You are welcome to join even if you have not read the book. Please read below for a description of the book.

Pop-Up Book Club will be held from 12:00-1:00pm ET.

Elizabeth McGowan lost her father to melanoma when he was forty-four and she was fifteen. She rediscovered him during a bike ride across the US, following her battle with the same disease. Joyful, introspective, terrifying, and sobering, her memoir is about reconciling her mortality with her father’s.

In the spring of 2000, McGowan marked five years of remission. Her intensive, eleven-year battle with cancer began just after she graduated from college. Her cross-country ride was undertaken, most often, alone; she sent journal entries home from local libraries and mailed home rolls of film. While riding, she made casual, unexpected connections with other survivors; some gave her checks, a bed for the night, a new story, or a tip for the road.

Transitions between the bike trip and McGowan’s childhood are seamless. She recalls her explosive and complex father, as well as her own health challenges. She experiences hospitality and kindness via little gestures that magnify human connections. As she moves through the Grand Tetons and across Yellowstone, American authors, including William Least Heat-Moon, William Stegner, and Edward Abbey, move with her; and American history informs the way she sees and understands the landscape and its people.

McGowan digs into the past to make sense of her present, and her reflections are frank and unsentimental. She sees both herself and her father with brilliant clarity, acknowledging the traits that both impeded their progress and made progress possible. She argues against the rhetoric of war that surrounds cancer and acknowledges her own fears and reluctance to engage in further testing.

Outpedaling “The Big C“ journeys through illness and America, viewing the ability to put one foot in front of the other as a gift. McGowan makes sense of her circumstances and develops strength across her powerful, 4,250-mile bicycle trip. (“Oupedaling” review by Camille-Yvette Welsch)

Get Outpedaling “The Big C” <HERE>

About Elizabeth McGowan

Elizabeth H. McGowan is an award-winning energy and environment reporter based in Washington, D.C. since 2001. Now a freelancer, her main gig since 2019 has been covering Virginia’s transition to clean energy for the Energy News Network. As a staff writer for startup InsideClimate News, her groundbreaking dispatches from Kalamazoo, Michigan, “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You Never Heard Of” earned her team a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2013. An e-book version of the narrative won the Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists. McGowan’s freelance articles have appeared in Grist, Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine, Yale Environment 360, A.T. Journeys (Appalachian Trail magazine) and multiple other publications. For the last year, she has written reviews of nature and health books for the Washington Independent Review of Books. McGowan began her journalism career at daily newspapers in Vermont and Wisconsin.

Her adventure memoir, “Outpedaling ‘The Big C’: My Healing Cycle Across America” was just released by Bancroft Press. She takes readers on the rollicking, introspective and sobering 4,250-mile ride she organized as a hospital fundraiser after surviving an 11-year saga with melanoma. That journey helped her rediscover her father, who had died of the same type of cancer at age 44, when McGowan was 15. Learn more: @ehmcgowanNEWS and https://elizabethmcgowan-author.com/

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, register by clicking the RSVP button above or by emailing olivia@smithcenter.org.

with Brandi Rose

Welcome to “Pop-Up Book Club,” a community of book lovers diving into current and relevant book material.

We will read The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Dr. Gabor Maté & Daniel Maté and on February 27th, Brandi Rose will lead us in a lively discussion about the book. Please join us no matter how much or little of the book you have read. Please read below for a description of the book.

Pop-Up Book Club will be held from 12:00-1:00pm ET.

By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing.

In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health?

Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society—and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Co-written with his son Daniel, The Myth of Normal is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.

Get The Myth of Normal <HERE>

About Brandi Rose (Artist-in-Residence Program Manager)

Brandi was thrilled to join Smith Center for Healing and the Arts as the new AIR Program Manager for Inova Fairfax in April 2023. In 2000, she received a Bachelors of Music in Vocal Music Education from James Madison University. After working for several years as a music educator, she transitioned to arts management with a focus on arts education. During her career, she worked for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Washington National Opera, and the Smithsonian Associates. In 2009, Brandi received a Masters in Arts Management with a specialization in Arts in Youth and Community Development from Columbia College Chicago. Upon her return to the DC area she spent nine years as the Program Director at Arts for the Aging, a local nonprofit providing multidisciplinary arts engagement workshops to older adults in senior care facilities and community settings. In 2021 she received a Graduate Certificate in Arts in Medicine from the University of Florida. In her spare time Brandi performs with Capital Blend, DC’s premiere all-female a cappella group.