Kara Martinez Bachman at Maple Street Books

The book launch for Kara Martinez Bachman’s humorous essay collection, Kissing the Crisis: Field Notes on Foul-Mouthed Babies, Disenchanted Women, and Careening into Middle Age, at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, February 7, at Maple Street Book Shop (7529 Maple Street).

Books will be available for sale, and the author will be available to sign them after her reading.

Kissing the Crisis is a collection of essays that explore the zany side of being a Gen X 40-something woman, and dealing with the inevitable changes that come with midlife.

Kara has read her work on NPR radio’s “State of the Re:Union,” and her essays and reporting have been included in dozens of publications including The Writer and Funny Times. Local New Orleans-area readers might recognize her as contributor to the New Orleans Times-Picayune and NOLA.com entertainment and home and garden sections, as well as to the community news for the Mandeville, Covington and Slidell Picayune. One of her editors at Times-Picayune, Susan Langenhennig, penned the foreword to this book.

Readers from Mississippi might have read Kara’s writing on southern culture in Legends or might know of her as managing editor of Parents & Kids Magazine-Mississippi Gulf Coast, Parents & Kids Magazine-Pine Beltand Parents & Kids Magazine-Mississippi Delta magazines.