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SUMMARY:An Evening with Cara Benson — An Armsfull of Birds | BACKSTAGE with The Sober Curator
DESCRIPTION:An Evening with Cara Benson — An Armsfull of Birds | BACKSTAGE with The Sober Curator\nCara Benson did not come to love the easy way. She crawled through New York City subway tunnels as a heroin addict\, partnered with an abusive man\, and waitressed in a polyester uniform at Friendly’s while sobriety closed in on her one stubborn night at a time. Then she got sober. Started walking the woods of upstate New York. Met Jon\, the man who would become her great love. And after years of building a life with him\, she lost him to suicide. \nThis book is what came next. \nAn Armsfull of Birds: A Personal Field Guide to Love\, Loss\, and Commitment is structured like nothing else in the recovery memoir space. Each chapter is named for a bird\, and each bird carries a piece of Cara’s story. American Goldfinches mark the night she met Jon. Crested Caracaras score her last gasp of drinking. Common Starlings show up the moment she crashes into sobriety and into the woods. By the final chapters\, she’s grieving Jon and tracking grackles\, ravens\, and the ruby-throated hummingbirds that visit her former-church home in the Hudson Valley. \nIt’s a recovery story. It’s a love story. It’s a climate memoir. It’s the kind of book that gets endorsed by Jenny Lawson AND Bill McKibben\, which almost never happens. \nCara is joining BACKSTAGE for an intimate one-hour conversation. We’re going to talk about: \n\nThe decade-plus path from heroin and alcohol to a sober life she actually wanted\nMeeting Jon\, choosing commitment after addiction\, and what “second chance lovers” actually means at midlife\nSurviving her partner’s suicide while staying sober\nWhy she retreated into birding and nature as a way to process grief\nHow writing a memoir cracked her wide open and what it taught her about telling the truth\n\nBring your questions. Bring your coffee. Bring tissue. \nThis is a closed BACKSTAGE event. Members only. RSVP to receive your Zoom link via email. The replay will live in the BACKSTAGE Replay Vault for members who cannot attend live. \nNot a member yet? JOIN BACKSTAGE \nAbout Cara: Her writing has appeared in The New York Times\, Orion\, Sierra Magazine\, Boston Review\, and Best American Poetry. An Armsfull of Birds is published by Health Communications\, Inc. and hits shelves May 19\, 2026. She lives in a former church on the ancestral homelands of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans in upstate New York.
URL:https://thesobercurator.com/event/an-evening-with-cara-benson-an-armsfull-of-birds-backstage-with-the-sober-curator/
LOCATION:Virtual
CATEGORIES:BACKSTAGE Members Only Events,Virtual Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thesobercurator.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/An-Evening-with-Cara-Benson-—-An-Armsfull-of-Birds.avif
ORGANIZER;CN="BACKSTAGE with The Sober Curator - Members Only Culture Club":MAILTO:thesobercurator@gmail.com
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