“Growing Up Biden” by Valerie Biden Owens
Posted: April 11, 2022
Tuesday, April 19, 7 p.m., LeRoux Conference Center (STCN 160)
American Sign Language interpretation provided
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Tickets: $40. Each paid ticket includes admission to the event and a signed copy of her book.
Update (April 8, 2022): Valerie Biden Owens tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday after experiencing mild symptoms. She is fully vaccinated and boosted, will isolate at home for five days following CDC recommendations and anticipates returning to her book tour upon testing negative.
This event will move online. You will receive your copy of “Growing Up Biden” by mail from Elliott Bay Book Company.
You will receive the Zoom link by email a few days prior to the event. Live captioning will be provided.
While we are disappointed that we will not gather in person, we are looking forward to the conversation with Valerie Biden Owens and Dr. Jeannette Rodriguez.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Biden Owens, one of the first female campaign managers in United States history, writes of the role of family, faith, and fate in shaping her life, and the power of empathy and kindness in the face of turmoil and division.
“Growing Up Biden” details Biden Owens' decades-long professional career in politics, and the central role she played in her brother’s life as an insightful adviser, an ever-loyal advocate and best friend.
This memoir, full of candor and warmth, brings readers into the Biden home and shares stories from growing up in Delaware as the only daughter of the close-knit Irish Catholic family. Biden Owens writes in a compelling, relatable way about the challenges she faced breaking through gender barriers, the elusive nature of confidence and navigating professional responsibilities while raising children.
“As a campaign manager, senior adviser or chief surrogate for every one of her brother’s campaigns, Biden Owens has been an integral part of Joe Biden’s success, and a profound influence in his life. Her stories of their close-knit Irish Catholic family are deeply moving and funny at the same time. As one of the first women to run major political campaigns, she has been much more than an eyewitness to history—she’s been an important part of it.” — Donna Brazile
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Valerie Biden Owens is the first woman in U.S. history to have run a presidential campaign―that of her brother, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. She also led his seven straight U.S. Senate victories and has been his principal surrogate on the campaign trail.
Biden Owens is vice chair of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware and a partner at Owens Patrick Leadership Seminars. She sits on the Advisory Board of the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children. For 20 years, when Biden Owens was not managing or advising President Biden’s campaigns, she served as Executive Vice President of Joe Slade White & Co., a media consulting firm. She has worked extensively with Women’s Campaign International, teaching women how to organize and develop communication and political skills. Biden Owens has also served on the National Board of the Women’s Leadership Forum of the Democratic National Committee and has served for 35 years on the board of The Ministry of Caring. She is a graduate of the University of Delaware. She is married to Jack Owens, an attorney and businessman. They have three children.
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Jeanette Rodriguez, PhD, is a professor at Seattle University and teaches in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and the Couples and Family Therapy Program. She serves as Director of the Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture and holds the Malcolm and Mari Stamper Endowed Chair in Catholic Intellectual and Cultural Traditions. Rodriguez is the author of several books and articles concentrated in the areas of U.S. Hispanic theology, theologies of liberation, peacebuilding and women’s spirituality.