Take Time to Relax, Chat With Authors : Why not take advantage of bookstore events where published writers come for signings and talks?

We commune with nature, hear bird songs, hug trees, smell the flowers and feelgood. We can also find comfort in communing with each other, not stridently via the talk shows or over the Internet, but in bookstores where the opportunity to relax and chat with published writers costs us only the effort to get there.

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Join Laurie King, author of “To Play the Fool,” a sequel to her Edgar Award-winning “A Grave Talent,” for some conversation and pre-dinner snacks at 6 p.m. Friday at Mysteries to Die For, 2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks.

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Earlene Fowler will sign “Irish Chain,” her second mystery featuring museum curator Benni Harper, at 1 p.m. Saturday at Mysteries to Die For.

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The annual two-day writing conference sponsored by Pacifica Graduate Institute of Carpinteria is scheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Miramar Sheraton Hotel, 101 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. This year’s theme, Writing Inside Out, will feature readings, discussions and workshop writing opportunities with distinguished authors Robert Olen Butler, awarded a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993, and Ellen Gilchrist, Allen Ginsberg, Brenda Peterson and Natalie Goldberg, author of “Writing Down the Bones” and “Wild Mind,” both aimed at enriching literary toilers. Call 969-3626, Ext. 103 for details.

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Michelle Townsley, a teacher at El Rio Elementary School will fascinate youngsters with her storytelling skills at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Ventura Bookstore, 522 E. Main St.

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Clara Dunwoody, an Ojai businesswoman, continues the tradition of volunteers reading for children at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in the Ojai Table of Contents, 208 E. Ojai Ave.

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Robie Harris will discuss how to present sex information to kids in her Keeping Our Kids Healthy talk based on her book “It’s Perfectly Normal” at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Adventures for Kids, 3457 Telegraph Road, Ventura. Parents, teachers and health professionals should be aware of this book, which, according to reviewers, is “an intelligent, amiable guide for young adolescents setting sail on the stormy seas of puberty” and a “terrific teaching tool that may help slow the spread of sexual diseases and ignorance.” The book features two characters, an easy-going bird and an apprehensive bee, whose comments add levity to what is for many a delicate and uncomfortable subject to discuss with our kids.

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Friends of the Camarillo Library need book donations now (no magazines) for their used book sale scheduled April 1 and 2. Call Ralph Lovell at 482-5919 or Harold Wilson at 482-9988.