CUSHING — In 1971, Elizabeth Garber’s father announced he was sending her — 17 years old — and her 14-year-old brother to a school on a sailing ship in order “to shape up and learn to work.”

Elizabeth has just published the story of this what-could-possibly-go-wrong saga as Sailing at the Edge of Disaster: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Daring Year and will present it at a live event, Sunday, March 19, at 2 p.m., in the Cushing Public Library’s Community Room. This event is co-sponsored by the Thomaston Public Library and is free and open to the public.

Garber previously presented a talk in Cushing on an earlier memoir, Implosion, which introduced her strong-willed architect father. Sailing at the Edge of Disaster recounts her time with brother and 50 additional high school “misfits” and chaperones aboard a once-magnificent yacht formerly owned by heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. They scoured the decks, learned to splice ratlines and climbed rigging — also facing a gale at sea, a hole in the hull, a near miss with a nuclear sub and being held hostage by armed gun boats in Panama. She describes this time as a transformative year in the throes of late adolescence leading to courage, grace and a reclamation of selfhood.

Elizabeth Garber’s Implosion was a 2018 finalist for the Indie Next Generation Book Award for Memoir. She is also the author of three collections of poetry and a collaboration with painter-photographer Michael Weymouth.

For more information call  Wendy Roberts at 207-691-0833 or email wrobertsmaine63@gmail.com.