Third Place Books presents Cecilia Aragon, in conversation with Theo Pauline Nestor

Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - 7:00pm

This is a virtual event! Register for this livestream event here!

Join us to celebrate the launch of Flying Free, the new memoir from University of Washington Professor Cecilia Aragon!

The daughter of a Chilean father and a Filipina mother, Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon grew up as a shy, timid child in a small midwestern town during the 1960s, targeted by school bullies and dismissed by many of her teachers.

Yet in the span of just six years, Cecilia became the first Latina pilot to secure a place on the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Team and earn the right to represent her country at the Olympics of aviation, the World Aerobatic Championships. How did she do it?

Flying Free is the story of how Cecilia Aragon broke free from prejudices of race and gender to rise above her own limits by combining math and logic with her passion for flying in unexpected ways. You don't have to be a math whiz or a science geek to learn from her story. You just have to want to soar.

Cecilia Aragon is an author, air-show pilot, and the first Latina full professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. She coauthored Writers in the Secret Garden, has worked with Nobel Prize winners, taught astronauts to fly, and created musical simulations of the universe with rock stars. Her major awards for research, and a stint at NASA designing software for Mars missions, led President Obama to call her “one of the top scientists and engineers in the country." She lives in Seattle.

Theo Pauline Nestor teaches writing at the University of Washington. Her essay “The Chicken’s in the Oven, My Husband’s out the Door” was published in the New York Times “Modern Love” column and was the genesis of her first book, How To Sleep Alone in a King-Sized Bed. She is also the author of Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too) and lives in Seattle, Washington, with her two daughters.

Flying Free: My Victory Over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the Us Aerobatic Team (Hardcover)
By Cecilia Aragon
$26.99
ISBN: 9781982642464
Availability: Coming soon - available for pre-order now
Published: Blackstone Publishing - September 22, 2020

How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over (Paperback)
By Theo Pauline Nestor
$16.00
ISBN: 9780307346773
Availability: Unavailable - due in 2-4 weeks
Published: Broadway Books - February 3, 2009