Buxton Books is proud to welcome Shannon Watts, author and founder of Moms Demand Action, to the bookstore for an event celebrating her new book, Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age. Shannon Watts will be joined in conversation by Dr. Annie Andrews! To purchase your tickets, please click here.
About Shannon Watts:
Shannon Watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action, the nation's largest grassroots group fighting against gun violence. Known as the 'summoner of women's audacity,' she spent more than a decade leading one of the world's largest field experiments for mobilizing women. She has been named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 Changemaker, and a Glamour Woman of the Year. The day after the Sandy Hook School mass shooting tragedy in 2012, she started a Facebook group to unite women against the gun lobby as Mothers Against Drunk Driving united mothers against the alcohol lobby in the 1980s. Under her leadership, Moms Demand Action became one of the largest grassroots movements in the country.
With a chapter in every state and over 10 million supporters, the organization is twice as large as the National Rifle Association. Over the past decade, Moms Demand Action volunteers passed over 500 gun safety laws; stopped the gun industry’s agenda in statehouses 90 percent of the time; elected thousands of gun sense candidates to office, including its own volunteers; and passed the first federal gun legislation in a generation.
After 11 years as the full-time volunteer leader of Moms Demand Action, Shannon stepped back in 2023 to focus on writing, speaking and organizing. She recently organized one of the largest Zoom gatherings in history, mobilizing over 200K voters and raising over $11 million in support of the 2024 Kamala Harris campaign, and has become one of the campaign’s largest fundraisers and most powerful surrogates for calling white women in. She now co-hosts the Women Wednesdays for Harris call with Indivisible, empowering thousands of women weekly with practical guidance on how to take action in the 2024 election.
Prior to founding Moms Demand Action, Watts – a mother of five – was a communications executive at public relations firms and Fortune 100 companies. She is an active board member of Emerge America, one of the nation’s leading organizations for recruiting and training women to run for office. Her first book, Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World, was released in 2019. Her next book is expected in 2025, and she writes regularly for Substack and outlets like The Washington Post, Elle, Time, The 19th, The Meteor and more. Her ideas on leadership help redefine what’s possible when audacious women unite to drive change.
About Dr. Annie Andrews:
Dr. Annie Andrews is a pediatrician and mom, who has dedicated her career to fighting for a brighter future for all children. After working as a pediatrician at children's hospitals for 15 years, she decided to run for Congress to give children a voice in Washington, D.C.. She was the Democratic nominee in South Carolina’s first congressional district in 2022.
Annie is currently a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she cares for children and adolescents at Children’s National Hospital. She is also a Senior Advisor to Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action.
She is a gun violence prevention researcher and community advocate working to reduce the frequency of pediatric firearm injuries with a focus on secure storage counseling. Annie is a frequent invited speaker at children’s hospitals and medical schools across the country on topics related to child health advocacy and gun violence prevention. She is a 2022 graduate of Furman University Riley Institute’s Diversity Leaders Initiative.
Annie received her MD from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and went on to complete her residency training in Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.