Author Spotlight Lunch Pail Series

Summer 2025

Select Fridays | at 12 Noon | Online via Zoom

Current OLLI at Sierra College Membership is Required to Participate
Become a Member / Renew OLLI Membership: Click Here!

Series Description — Our region is home to a variety of terrific authors who write a wide assortment of books. This monthly series of interviews will introduce us to some of these interesting, local writers and their books.

An Added Benefit — Your class fee is a donation to the Sierra College Food Pantry. One hundred percent of the registration proceeds made from the Author Spotlight Lunch Pail Series will be donated to the Sierra College Food Pantry. Thank you for joining our cause to help end student food insecurity on our campuses and in our community.

The Food Pantry is open to all Sierra College students experiencing food insecurity regardless of income. The Food Pantry’s stock consists of a variety of non-perishable items. Students must be currently enrolled at Sierra College to use the food pantry. There is a Sierra College Food Pantry located at both the Rocklin and Grass Valley campuses, which gives scores of local homeless and food insecure youth a weekly box of food. More information can be found on the Sierra College Food Pantry webpage or Click Here!

Thank you, OLLI members, for your support of this crucial resource for our Sierra College student body!

*Tip: To view the Author's book cover in larger scale, click on their Series' Title below (in dark gray box with white letters).

Author Spotlight Lunch Pail Series: Shelley Blanton-Stroud – Copy Boy (June)
Interviewer/Moderator: Joan Griffin
Dates: 6/6/2025 (only)
Days: F
Times: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Sessions: 1
Fee: $5.00 (SC Food Pantry Donation)
Location: Online via Zoom
Recording: *This class is being recorded. *Recordings will expire after 30 days.
Seats Available: 285 | Max Enroll: 299
SKU: SumALIT151

June 6 – Shelley Blanton-Stroud – Copy Boy, Tom Boy, Poster Girl, An Unlikely Prospect

Bio: Shelley Blanton-Stroud grew up in California’s Central Valley, the daughter of Dust Bowl immigrants who made good on their ambition to get out of the field. She is recently retired from teaching writing in the California State University system. She has served as President of the Board of 916 Ink, an arts-based creative writing nonprofit for children, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. She previously co-directed Stories on Stage Sacramento, where actors performed the stories of established and emerging authors.

Books: Her historical mystery series—Copy Boy, Tomboy, and Poster Girl—follows Jane Benjamin, a cross-dressing, tomato-picking, San Francisco gossip columnist who investigates crime stories that never make the front page. Her fourth novel, An Unlikely Prospect (She Writes Press, August 2025), is based on the little-known V-J Day San Francisco Peace Riot, featuring a widow publisher who fights to find her voice in 1945 journalism.

*Proceeds will be donated to the Sierra College Food Pantry. Membership Required.
*Class Dates: 6/6 (only).

Author Spotlight Lunch Pail Series: Mother’s Day – Barbara Olson Lawrence – Drawing Water (May)
Interviewer/Moderator: Joan Griffin
Dates: 5/16/2025 (only)
Days: F
Times: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Sessions: 1
Fee: $5.00 (SC Food Pantry Donation)
Location: Online via Zoom
Recording: *This class was recorded.
Seats Available: 277 | Max Enroll: 299
SKU: SprALIT141

May 16 – Barbara Olson Lawrence – Drawing Water – Mother’s Day

Bio: Barbara Olson Lawrence is inspired by sunrises, persistent rivers, and beautiful sentences. In her thirties, as a single mom working in a college library, she earned a BA in art and exhibited her work in juried shows in museums and galleries in the San Francisco Bay Area. A native Oregonian, she now lives in Northern California’s Gold Country in the Sierra Nevada foothills. On her daily walks she collects fallen leaves for later drawings using her favorite pencil.

Book: Drawing Water: The Art of Finding My Way is a memoir of resilience and overcoming odds. It is a testament to the power of kindness and caring interventions to heal a damaged heart. Barbara Olson Lawrence learned very early on to tell the difference between people who meant her harm and those she could trust. Her beloved grandfather’s lessons imparted strong life strategies. Her second-grade teacher and a store clerk filled the void left in her heart by her mother’s neglect and destruction. How can someone be a good mother if she never experienced good mothering? Barbara answered that question by seeking out nurturing helpers and wise mentors. Always, making art saved her.

*Proceeds will be donated to the Sierra College Food Pantry. Membership Required.
→ You have until this date to watch the recording: Sunday, 6/15/25 at 11:59 PM
→ Purchase this course to receive the link to watch the class recording.

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