Workshop with Polly Basore Wenzl

Watermark Books & Café is excited to offer a memoir-writing workshop with Polly Basore Wenzl, author of the book Apocalyptic Polly: A Pandemic Memoir. This is a ticketed workshop - each ticket is $30 and comes with a copy of Polly's memoir. This session will include reflecting and recording your own pandemic story, or more broadly, memoir writing. Similar to Polly's WSU course, The Power of Storytelling, this workshop will help you identify transformative moments in your life and tell your own story to the greatest effect on others. Join us on Sunday, February 26th from 12:30pm to 1:30pm in the Author Autograph Gallery in the basement of Watermark Books & Café! Limited tickets available.

About Polly Basore Wenzl 

Polly Basore Wenzl is a Wichita journalist, author, and educator who's had an active presence in the Wichita community since she arrived here in 1998. She's worked as a newspaper editor for The Wichita Eagle and The Wichita Beacon, founded a philanthropy called AngelWorks, helped launch a number of non-profits and community programs primarily serving disadvantaged children, including Real Men Real Heroes (now Heroes Academy). In the early 2000s, she authored three children's books that were sold to raise more than $200,000 for The Lord's Diner and Three Trees (now Kidcope). For the past five years, she's taught an Honors Seminar at Wichita State University called "The Power of Storytelling" with her husband, Roy Wenzl, a Wichita journalist and author. 

About Apocalyptic Polly 

Apocalyptic Polly chronicles both the intimate experience of one woman trying to protect her family during a global pandemic and the broader story of a nation upended by public health measures designed to prevent its spread during a period of growing political division, social unrest, economic crisis, and extreme weather. A child of the Cold War, the author reflects on how a "prepare, prevent, and respond" mindset led to a lifetime of anxiety and extreme caution in the face of Covid-19 - but proved no defense against heart-breaking loss. This bracingly honest memoir is a contemporary history, enriched with excerpts from personal text messages and social media posts that kept her connected to the outside world during her household's year of self-imposed isolation.