BRUNSWICK – Kirsten Holmstedt, author of the award-winning “Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq,” will give a talk at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 3, at Bowdoin College.

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Rosie Noel and Navy Aviation Boatswain’s Mate Marcia Lillie, both of whom are featured in the book, will join Holmstedt for her presentation, which is titled “Women Making History on the Battlefield.”

The talk in Thorne Hall, Daggett Lounge is open to the public. Admission is free.

“Band of Sisters” is the first book to explore the lives of more than a dozen women who have served in combat in Iraq.

Holmstedt was finishing her first year of graduate school in the spring of 2003 when the war in Iraq started. Living in Jacksonville, N.C., near Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, she was in an ideal location to initiate her research of women serving in combat. Over the next several years, she traveled throughout the United States and spent hundreds of hours interviewing female soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors.

As part of her research, Holmstedt flew to an aircraft carrier off the coast of Florida to interview a woman who worked on the flight deck of the USS Harry S. Truman, and to Fort Campbell, Ky., to meet a soldier who had been wounded by improvised explosive devices. She also traveled to Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, N.C.; Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.; and other military installations. She talked to the women in person, by phone and through e-mail as they traveled back and forth between Iraq and their home bases.

In January 2007, Holmstedt was part of a panel of authors who spoke about the war in Iraq to members of Congress in Washington, D.C.

“Band of Sisters” is the recipient of the 2007 Golden Quill Award (military genre) from the American Authors Association, and the 2007 Founder’s Award from the Military Writers Society of America.