Katrina Kenison, author of The Gift of an Ordinary Day and Mitten Strings for God and the series editor for 16 years of The Best American Short Stories, will be reading and signing her books this Thursday at both the La Cañada Presbyterian Church’s Family Life Center and at Flintridge Bookstore.

Despite the title and the first venue, Kenison is not an overtly religious author (though there are plenty of religious references). Her books are both memoirs of motherhood in modern, middle-class America, with all the helter-skelter planning and pacing that entails. More than that, they are chronicles of her attempts — successful, by the sounds of it — to create peace, spiritual and otherwise, in that most fraught of domains, family life, as well as to raise her children well enough that they can successfully leave the nest.

Katrina Kenison: An Extra-Ordinary Day
Thursday, February 18, 12:30 p.m.
La Cañada Presbyterian Church, 626 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada
Reservations appreciated: tstobias@gmail.com or 818.790.6708

Thursday, February 18, 7:3o p.m.
Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse, 964 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada
818.790.0717, flintridgebooks.com