After years of managing a busy household of nine people, Well-Read Mom founder Marcie Stokman learned that she was a happier, more whole woman, wife, and mother when she was reading good books.
As her children grew, Marcie began sharing a talk with area women that she called, 'The Well-Read Mom.' What she learned through that experience is that moms want to read, but can’t find the time, or simply don’t know where to start when it comes to choosing books.
Years later, Marcie’s daughter Beth, a new mother, voiced her frustration with the typical mom’s group conversation which seemed to be limited to sleeping habits and strategies for soothing teething babies.
“Isn’t there a place for women, after college, where they can keep exploring the good, challenging stuff – high quality literature, philosophy, theology?” Beth asked.
Just a few months later, in the fall of 2012, in a small town in northern Minnesota, twenty women gathered in Marcie Stokman’s living room for the first Well-Read Mom meeting. The reading list that year that included Dorothy Day’s The Long Loneliness and Sigrid Undset’s monumental Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, among others. Halfway through the year about 100 women met for the first Well-Read Mom Conference in St. Paul, Minn.
It was a wonderful year and by the end of it, many women shared their enthusiasm for the group, for the encouragement to read, and for the accountability provided by the monthly meetings.
Now, there are hundreds of groups in all 50 states and several countries. That’s over 3000 women who are reading more and reading well. We hope you’ll join us on this fascinating journey we are making with women around the globe. Read more. Read well.
Well-Read Mom is a non-profit 501c3 organization committed to helping women take care of their hearts by reclaiming time for books and friendship.
We read together to create an openness through conversation and friendship where Truth can be encountered. We welcome women of all religious traditions. Each group has its own flavor which reflects the life experience of the members.
Because staff and many key volunteers are deeply committed Catholic women who strive to be faithful to the teachings of the Magisterium, the reflections, audios, and discussion questions view the literature through the lens of the Catholic intellectual tradition.