# Event Details

- **Event Name**: An Evening With Eric Goodman
- **Event Start and End Date**: Sat, 11 Apr, 2026 at 05:00 pm (-05:00)
- **Event Description**: Magic City Books is pleased to welcome Eric Goodman for a free in-store event to celebrate his book, Mother of Bourbon. This event will take place at Magic City Books, 221 E. Archer Street in the Tulsa Arts District.

Eric will be in conversation with Jay Harris.

"Unsung bourbon distiller—and force of nature—Mary Dowling overcame family tragedy, discrimination, and Prohibition, to achieve extraordinary success. Her story comes to life in this page-turning novel.” –Susan Reigler, author of Kentucky Bourbon: The Essential Guide to the American Spirit

Mother of Bourbon released on April 29, 2025, and you can purchase a copy through Magic City Books ahead of time or at the event.


About the Book
Born in 1859 to Irish immigrants who’d escaped the great potato famine, Mary Dowling arrived at the height of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic fervor in America. The hardscrabble life her family led provided the foundation of grit and determination that would serve her well, along with a natural gift for numbers and planning. She married the enterprising John Dowling when she was just fifteen and he was thirty-three. Despite their age gap, John was a kind and adoring husband who recognized Mary’s remarkable skills and made her his partner not just in life but in business. He offered her oversight of their burgeoning bourbon company’s financial books and sought her insight and advice on acquisition and expansion as they steadily grew from distillery investors to sole proprietors of Waterfill and Frazier in Tyrone, Kentucky, just outside Lawrenceburg, in the heart of Bourbon Country.

Mary’s first trials arrive at the turn of the century in a series of tragedies that leave her widowed and with a business no one wants to support. Steering not only the lives of her eight children, she bucks up against a male-dominated bank and distributor that drop her because women don’t run businesses, to align herself with progressive partners who value the dollar over outdated ideas about gender. She scales to ever higher heights, becoming an influential member of Lawrenceburg society while achieving immense wealth at a time when women still couldn’t vote.

When Prohibition arrives with its attendant animosity toward immigrants and Catholics, Mary is forced into semi-retirement—until the federal government comes after her on trumped-up charges of bootlegging. Only then does she bite back, determining that if she is going to be treated like a criminal, she will behave like one—taking her operation to Juarez, Mexico, to begin another iteration of Waterfill and Frazier that would distill and legally distribute bourbon throughout Mexico and, less legally, north into the US.

Mother of Bourbon: The Greatest American Whiskey Story Never Told is the never-before-told story of a pioneering and visionary woman who achieved success in a system designed to suppress her, and against a government that strived to repress her. Mary’s courage and determination are the hallmarks that live on today in Mary Dowling Whiskey, as extraordinary and distinctive as the woman whose name it bears.


About the Author
Eric Goodman is the author of eight books, most recently Mother of Bourbon, his first historical novel, which tells the story of Mary Dowling, the only woman to own major bourbon distilleries in pre-Prohibition Kentucky. In 2024, he published Curveball, a love story and literary baseball novel, a sequel to his best-known novel In Days of Awe ((1991). For many years, Goodman directed the creative writing program at Miami University (Ohio) and taught workshops at the Iowa Summer WritersFestival. He lives in Santa Rosa, CA and Mecklenburg, NY, with his wife, author Susan Morgan.

About the Moderator
Though he has lived for many years in yonder parts, Jay Harris is a native Oklahoman, presently enjoying the opportunity to introduce his good friend, Brooklyn-born Eric Goodman, to the wonders of Tulsa, Bartlesville, and chicken-fried steak. Among other distinctions during a career in the business of journalism, Jay helped build Mother Jones into a powerhouse of independent investigative reporting. Through his years as publisher and CEO there, he became well acquainted with the magical powers of bourbon.
- **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/tulsa/an-evening-with-eric-goodman/200029901342855
- **Event Categories**: Art, literary-art, Workshops
- **Interested Audience**: 
  - total_interested_count: 0

## Ticket Details


## Event venue details

- **city**: Tulsa
- **state**: OK
- **country**: United States
- **location**: Magic City Books
- **lat**: 36.158580404373
- **long**: -95.989911854267
- **full address**: Magic City Books, 221 E. Archer St.  ,Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States

## Event gallery

- **Alt text**: An Evening With Eric Goodman
  - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events10/banners/0164d8e8b743e78e833f67342eff8128d5768a941865ae99af05396778425a07-rimg-w1200-h676-dc624132-gmir?v=1775468575

## FAQs

- **Q**: When and where is An Evening With Eric Goodman being held?
  - **A:** An Evening With Eric Goodman takes place on Sat, 11 Apr, 2026 at 05:00 pm to Sat, 11 Apr, 2026 at 05:00 pm at Magic City Books, 221 E. Archer St.  ,Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States.
- **Q**: Who is organizing An Evening With Eric Goodman?
  - **A:** An Evening With Eric Goodman is organized by Magic City Books.

## Structured Data (JSON-LD)

```json
[
    {
        "@context": "https://schema.org",
        "@type": "Event",
        "name": "An Evening With Eric Goodman",
        "image": "https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events10/banners/0164d8e8b743e78e833f67342eff8128d5768a941865ae99af05396778425a07-rimg-w1200-h676-dc624132-gmir?v=1775468575",
        "startDate": "2026-04-11T17:00:00-05:00",
        "url": "https://allevents.in/tulsa/an-evening-with-eric-goodman/200029901342855",
        "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventScheduled",
        "location": {
            "@type": "Place",
            "name": "Magic City Books",
            "address": {
                "@type": "PostalAddress",
                "streetAddress": "221 E. Archer St.  ,Tulsa, Oklahoma",
                "addressLocality": "Tulsa",
                "addressRegion": "OK",
                "addressCountry": "US"
            },
            "geo": {
                "@type": "GeoCoordinates",
                "latitude": "36.158580404373",
                "longitude": "-95.989911854267"
            }
        },
        "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode",
        "description": "Magic City Books is pleased to welcome Eric Goodman for a free in-store event to celebrate his book, Mother of Bourbon. This event will take place at Magic City Books, 221 E. Archer Street in the Tulsa Arts District.\n\nEric will be in conversation with Jay Harris.\n\n\"Unsung bourbon distiller—and force",
        "organizer": [
            {
                "@type": "Organization",
                "name": "Magic City Books",
                "url": "https://allevents.in/org/magic-city-books/11839070",
                "description": "Magic City Books is a project of the nonprofit Tulsa Literary Coalition. We are a building block in a community of book lovers, connecting readers and writers through great literary programs."
            }
        ]
    }
]
```