WESTPORT — Author Alena Dillon will celebrate the release of her debut book, I Thought We Agreed To Pee In The Ocean: And Other Amusings from a Girl Wearing Sweatpants, on Sunday, September 29, from 4-6 pm, at Arezzo Ristorante in Westport. The reception will feature appetizers, half-price drinks for purchase, door prizes, readings, and a book signing. A portion of the profits from book sales will benefit HealingNewtown Through the Arts.

The book is a collection of humor essays, which will be available on Amazon in paperback ($15) and e-book ($5.99). The collection, published by Martlet & Mare Books, captures life’s absurdities through the perspective of an every-woman.

Ms Dillon invites readers to laugh along with her as she reflects on universal experiences including diet frustration (The devil is in the Doritos), as well as situations uniquely Ms Dillon’s own, such as pounding on the side of a moving Mister Softee truck. Her collection offers widely recognizable stories of love, rejection, body image, snarky baristas, bargain hunting, ill-timed snorting and, of course, public urination.

Gina Barreca, author of It’s Not That I’m Bitter, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World, calls the collection “fiercely entertaining … a fun and funny read with hearts and smarts.”

Ms Dillon is a Connecticut success story. She grew up in Fairfield’s public school system and graduated Fairfield High School in 2004. She then earned her BA from the University of Connecticut and her MFA from Fairfield University. She has been published on The Huffington Post, The Rumpus, The Dennis Quinn Radio Show, in Chicken Soup for the Soul, and in all ten magazines of the Weston Magazine Group.

She is excited, she said, for the book’s release, and thrilled to be able to share the experience with the community while benefiting an important organization.

HealingNewtown through the Arts is a project created by an ad-hoc team of local, regional, and state arts leaders in response to the Sandy Hook tragedy. The project centers on the arts as a way to help the Newtown community strengthen and heal following 12/14.