Ruth Pennebaker's

debut adult novel, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough, will be released in January 2011. She's also written three highly acclaimed young-adult novels, Don't Think Twice, Conditions of Love, and Both Sides Now, as well as essays and articles for The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, Parents, Redbook, McCall's, Cooking Light and other nationwide publications. She is a columnist for the Texas Observer, a commentator for KUT, Austin's public radio station, and the author of A Texas Family Time Capsule, a collection of her favorite columns.

Ms. Pennebaker lives in Austin, with her mad-scientist husband, the scattered memorabilia of their adult daughter and son, and a neutered cat named Lefty. Her hobbies are reading, yoga, social criticism, and free-form worrying. A card-carrying member of the Chickasaw Nation, Ms. Pennebaker was born in Ponca City, Oklahoma, close to a refinery. She holds a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from Eckerd College and, for reasons that now elude her, a J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law.

Ruth Pennebaker blogs about women, men, families, marriage, politics, aging, writing and anything else that occurs to her at her Fabulous Geezersisters' blog, www.geezersisters.com.

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Ruth Pennebaker has been a speaker or panelist at the following gatherings:

• Texas Book Festival, Austin
• Texas Library Association, Houston
• University of Texas at Arlington Women's Studies Friend's Luncheon, speaker: "If the Feminist Revolution is Over, Does That Mean Our Side Won?"
• Writer's League of Texas, Austin
• Mid-South Independent Booksellers Association, New Orleans
• West Texas Book & Author Festival, Abilene, Texas