Athena Isle- Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big House series of books is scheduled to appear in-world at 12:00PM SLT today. Her avatar, Susanka Queler, will conduct a round-table session where the audience may ask questions directly. Susanka is an architect; her philosophy about living centers on eliminating life's clutter and making time to engage in the things that really matter to a person.

Susanka's in-world appearance is in conjunction with the release of her latest book, The Not So Big Life, which was published by Random House in May.

From the press release: [Susanka] has written about Second Life in her blog, explaining how it provides an excellent metaphor for understanding how we create our own realities.

The topic of Susanka's discussion is "The Waking Dream: Second Life as a Metaphor for Our True Self."

"In my book, I introduce the concept of the Waking Dream, the notion that everything that is happening in our lives is a kind of dream in which every character and every event that happens to us is a reflection of an aspect of who we really are," Susanka said. "This is a truth that’s very difficult for most humans to grapple with because it disavows the separate existence of that which they’ve always taken themselves to be."

Susanka's appearance is the first in the summer series of events at Athena Isle, which provides workshops, hosts events, and brings awareness to women's issues in SL. The event will be hosted by Cybergrrl Oh, who owns Athena Isle with seven other women. Oh has been building online communities since the 1990s. Among her many credits is WebGrrls International, a site dedicated to business networking for women.

While Oh admits that most of Athena Isle's visitors are women, she does note that men do drop in and are welcome to attend all events on the island.

Following Susanka's appearance, every Tuesday at 12:00PM SLT Athena Isle Women will host the Athena Isle Women's meeting with special guests. These events cover a sweeping variety of topics and take place in dome near the main telehub. Wednesdays at 12:00PM is Athena Isle Writers. This writer's group takes place on the Story Mountain parcel; it can be reached from the main telehub.