Two authors who write about very different topics will host book signings this weekend at The Next Page bookstore in Frisco.

Dr. Sara Gottfried, author of The New York Times best-seller “The Hormone Cure,” is in town to speak at Colorado Wanderlust at Copper Mountain and will be at the bookstore on Friday from 4 to 6 p.m. Colorado author Michelle Rodenburg will sign her children’s books at The Next Page from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.

‘The Hormone Cure’

Gottfried is a Harvard-educated physician and board-certified gynecologist who has been taking care of women for 20 years.

“When I was in my 30s and premenstrual and stressed out, I went to my doctor and I was offered an antidepressant a birth-control pill,” she said. “The things that we suggest — the things that I was trained to prescribe to women for the symptoms they described —were a birth control pill, an antidepressant or both. That seemed wrong to me.”

The problem wasn’t being addressed at its root, Gottfried said.

“I recognized that my hormones were out of whack and my cortisol was about three times what it should be in the morning,” she said. “I figured out a solution, a natural way of balancing your hormones, and most of the time, it doesn’t require a pharmaceutical.”

Her book, “The Hormone Cure,” is about finding the root cause of “why you feel like crap, why you feel burned out or like you are aging too fast,” she said.

“I have a three-step, natural solution called the Gottfried Protocol,” she said. “I took my situation in my 30s, which was 10 years ago, and I looked at my practice and identified the top seven hormonal imbalances, for women starting in their 20s up to their 70s and 80s.”

Upgrading your health and your hormones is a daily practice, Gottfried said. Originally from Alaska, she said she feels like there is a lot of resonance between the people of Alaska and Colorado, the rugged individualists who are active and eat well.

“Even among the healthy, there’s a way in which stressors — living at altitude or maybe having more inflammation in your body than you realize or going through a divorce or whatever stressors you have — those still can cause hormonal problems. If you look at those symptoms as a message to decode instead of masking them with the latest pharmaceuticals, you’re more likely to rock your mission.”

Gottfried said her talks at the Wanderlust festival and The Next Page will be very different.

“The Speakeasy at Wanderlust is seven strategies that you can use to upgrade your cortisol,” she said. “Cortisol is like the bad boyfriend you had in high school or college; you knew it was a bad idea, but you went there anyway. Changing your relationship with stress and cortisol is a program that is for both men and women.”

The talk at the bookstore is a reading and a more intimate question-and-answer session on the top seven hormonal imbalances, only one of which is cortisol. Gottfried said she wants to change the conversation that people are having about hormones.

“I think that both men and women have been misguided about the role of hormones,” she said. “We have this very simplistic understanding of it right now. … It’s easier to balance your hormones than to live with the misery of having your hormones out of balance.”

For more information about Gottfried or her book, visit http://thehormonecurebook.com.

Colorado children’s books

Rodenburg is the self-published author of “The Twelve Days of Winter in Colorado,” “The Twelve Days of Autumn in Colorado” and “Colorado Creatures,” among other titles.

“I’m a teacher, and I’ve always wanted to become an author, so I decided that I wanted to write children’s books,” Rodenburg said. “I came to the realization that I needed to publish them myself to get my own words and ideas out to the children.”

Rodenburg’s illustrated books are for everyone, but the reading level is around third or fourth grade, she said. The books are meant to inspire a love of reading at a young age.

“In the back of the books, there’s information for teachers or parents or grandparents to help teach their children the love of reading,” she said.

Aside from their focus on Colorado — teaching about 14ers, mountain critters and the changing seasons — the books are special because of the illustrations.

“I think that the two illustrators, Eric Fronapfel and Amy Fitzgerald, are very, very talented people,” Rodenburg said. “And although I knew I wanted to write books for children, I knew I didn’t have the ability to illustrate them. Without the two illustrators that I’m working with, my books would not be doing as well as they are.”

In addition to captivating illustrations, a few of Rodenburg’s books are also accompanied by musical CDs to further engage young readers.

“‘Colorado Creatures’ has a CD, and every animal is shaped like its letter, but also every animal has its own voice,” she said. “The voices are Colorado young adults, and they sing in various personalities, so every animal has its voice, and I know that the kids love that.”

All of the contributors to Rodenburg’s books are Colorado residents, from the illustrators to the music directors to the singers who voice the characters on her CDs. The author said the mere fact of living in Colorado provides inspiration for her books.

“Just being in Colorado — the weather is beautiful, you can be out in nature all the time, looking at the wildlife — and that’s what inspires me,” she said. “Being able to be outside and see what Colorado has to offer, especially through our young people. … It’s such a beautiful place to live and learn about. I think writing books for children about Colorado builds a love of Colorado. It gets them outside of their box. Some kids who are living in cities aren’t getting up into the mountains, and it opens the doors for them to see what Colorado has to offer.”

For more information about Rodenburg or her books, visit http://www.grubnedorpress.com.