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| Library hosts free health-plan information seminar for seniors Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 3:57 PM PST In a free program Thursday, Dec. 3, at the Half Moon Bay Library, seniors can get answers to questions about the Medicare prescription drug program. Sponsored by Self-Help for the Elderly and scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon, the program will be given by four HICAP (Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program) counselors. The Medicare annual election period runs through Dec. 31, when seniors can buy a prescription drug plan or make changes in existing plans. On Thursday, counselors will provide an introduction to Medicare Part D options and help participants identify options that meet their needs. This is the first time such a program has been given at the local library, at 620 Correas St. in Half Moon Bay. Recently it was held in Spanish; the Dec. 3 program will be in English. The library can be reached at 726-2316. Santa Cruz reading features Coastsiders Coastsiders Pamela Eakins will step up in Santa Cruz Tuesday evening for a reading and celebration of “Sisters Singing,” an anthology of writing, art and music by women writers. The recently released anthology includes poetry, stories, songs and blessings by women across the country, compiled and edited by Santa Cruz writer/teacher Carolyn Brigit Flynn. The book took shape in spring 2002, out of responses to Sept. 11 among members of women writers’ groups that Flynn facilitated. Among its more than 100 contributors are Moss Beach resident Pamela Eakins, spiritual teacher and author of “Tarot of the Spirit.” Other local contributors include Pamela Eakins’ artist mother Joyce Eakins and Rae Abileah, who grew up in Half Moon Bay and became an activist with Code Pink. Eakins will read new work at “Sisters Singing: An Evening of Poetry and Prose,” 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 1 at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. She will be joined by other featured readers and guests including Sisters Singing editor Flynn, poet Sylvia Patience and poet, novelist and medicine woman Deena Metzgar. The bookstore can be reached at (831) 423-0900. Tokunaga to hold signing of second novel Wendy Tokunaga, now of El Granada, studied Japanese culture and language while in college. She married a Japanese man. The protagonist in her debut novel, “Midori by Moonlight,” came from Japan. And Japan is the setting for her recently published second novel, “Love in Translation” (approximately 250 pages, trade paperback, St. Martin’s Press,) which Tokunaga will discuss and sign copies of on Sunday, Dec. 6, at Harbor Books & Gallery. “I’m attracted to the aspect of the culture where the people seem to be courteous and (to) a society based on courtesy and social norms appeals to me,” Tokunaga told the Review in May 2009 when her second novel was completed. Music is a strong theme in “Love in Translation,” a story about fledgling singer Celeste Duncan. Upon receiving a mysterious phone call and a box of family heirlooms, Duncan is off to Japan to find a long-lost relative — a Japanese war bride who came to America to marry Celeste’s great-uncle — who might hold the key to the father Celeste never knew. Though overwhelmed by Japan, when Celeste learns a Japanese song called “Nozomi no Hoshi” (“The Wishing Star,”) things start to fall into place in ways she could not have expected. Tokunaga and her husband decided to make that fictional song a reality. He wrote the music, she co-wrote lyrics in Japanese and English with friend Hiro Akashi and she — having sung Japanese songs — sang the vocal. They plan to put the song on a CD, along with a karaoke version and audio drama trailer podcast of the book, which Tokunaga will give away at the signing. Harbor Books & Gallery is located at Harbor Village at 270 Capistrano Road in Princeton, and can be reached at 726-4241. |