February 2024

We welcome longtime friend of PWC, Stella Pope Duarte, as our February speaker.  Stella has been supportive of PWC for many years and is looking forward to celebrating 100 years with us in 2026.

Multi-award-winning author, Stella Pope Duarte will explore the “invisible city dwellers,” in a presentation from her short story collection, Women Who Live in Coffee Shops. Inspiring, charming and heart-filled, her story, “Benny”, won acclaim in Ireland from Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes.

Inspired to write by a prophetic dream of her father in 1995, Stella Pope Duarte, believes that writing like love, begins within or it doesn’t start at all.  Hailed by critics as a “major literary voice in America,” she is described by Jacquelyn Mitchard as a “magical weaver with a sure hand and a pure heart,” and by Ursula K. Le Guin as an “author who will enlarge humanity.” Her works include short stories, novels, a biography, a memoir, a bilingual children’s book, and numerous essays and articles.

The love for literature began for Stella as a child, when she read books at Harmon Park Library in the Sonorita Barrio in South Phoenix, then came home to gather neighborhood children to act out the stories she had read.  Words danced in her head, and their power led her to uncover her purpose—writing was her destiny.

A Pulitzer Prize nominee, Stella has won honors and awards nationwide, including a 2009 American Book Award; Southwest Book of the Year Award “Top Pick”; Women in American History Award; Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award; AZ Highways Book of the Year Award, and a Book Sense 76 Selection. In 2013, she was honored as one of four Women Makers of Arizona. She currently writes from her home in Phoenix and credits faith in God and love of family as the foundation for her literary success.

To RSVP for this engaging, hybrid meeting on February 17, please visit our Meetings page.