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In this intimate memoir, a child advocate chronicles her seven-year journey fighting for four siblings in America’s child welfare system, offering vital insights for professionals, advocates, and anyone passionate about transforming children’s lives. From suburban empty-nester to Court Appointed Special Advocate, this powerful memoir chronicles a seven-year journey alongside four siblings trapped in America's complex child welfare system. Through unflinching observations and raw honesty, author Julie Savitch brings readers into the lives of Kenny, CJ, Zoe, and Allegra as they navigate the turbulent waters of family preservation, foster care, and the elusive search for a forever home. The journey begins with an optimistic mission to keep a family intact, working with Dawn, a mother battling addiction and instability. When the children enter foster care, separated and scared, Julie becomes their unwavering champion—fighting to maintain their precious sibling bonds across multiple placements, advocating for their educational needs, and serving as a crucial bridge between an often-fragmented system of schools, foster homes, and courtrooms. As Julie evolves from an idealistic volunteer to a battle-tested advocate, she confronts impossible choices and the profound responsibility of being the only consistent adult in four young lives. Grounded in research about foster care, sibling separation, and parental incarceration, this intimate account reveals the hidden realities of America's child welfare system while demonstrating the transformative power of showing up for vulnerable children. Author: Julie Savitch Publication Date: April 28, 2026 -
For James Herriot fans and pet lovers, a modern-day, funny-yet-poignant memoir about what it is like to be the only person in a small family not employed in the veterinary profession. Patti Eddington should have known when she married her veterinary student boyfriend that she would spend anniversary and birthday dinners not sitting at tables at fancy restaurants but kneeling under a surgery table in a cocktail dress, desperately trying to mop up a steady stream of blood and urine with cheap paper towels. She should have guessed that every knock at the door or ring of the phone would mean her husband would be torn away from the family for hours—sometimes returning deflated, sometimes smiling. But she could never have dreamed that her beautiful, curly-haired young daughter would one day bathe and sleep with an inflatable tick (until the day it was mysteriously punctured by a salad fork) or that she would go through her marriage of forty-five years opening every freezer door with caution. Don’t Look in the Freezer is a humorous, poignant, loving look into the sometimes strange, mostly unglamorous, life of a veterinarian’s wife. Patti’s little family is not at all like that of famous veterinarian James Herriot’s—but is still absolutely filled with compassion and love for animals and the people who adore them. Author: Patti Eddington Publication Date: April 28, 2026 -
For fans of Eat Pray Love and Untamed, a soulful memoir of motherhood, mysticism, and plant medicine that chronicles one woman’s journey of healing and transformation in the lush wilds of Kauai. What if your greatest teachers weren’t shamans in the jungle but the people you eat breakfast with every morning? The Mother Vine is a raw, often funny, and deeply human story of one woman’s awakening through plant medicine—and the winding road that leads her there. After walking away from a high-powered TV career and a picture-perfect life in Canada, Shannon moves her family to the jungled slopes of Kauai in search of a more laid-back existence. But instead of fresh mangoes and good surf, she finds herself swept into a tide of unexpected revelations.? In the crucible of motherhood, Shannon’s two sons and husband become unlikely teachers, reflecting her forgotten pieces with unrelenting love and occasional ferocity. Their struggles crack her open in ways no self-help book ever could. When deep-seated heartache has her seeking transformation, an invitation to drink ayahuasca becomes a lifeline. Guided by ancient wisdom and insatiable curiosity, Shannon begins the journey of remembering who she truly was—and still is. More than a memoir of healing, The Mother Vine is a love letter to the mess of motherhood, the mystery of the medicine path, and the sacred power of being fully alive. If you’ve ever longed for something deeper, this book is for you. Author: Shannon Nering Publication Date: April 21, 2026 -
A captivating memoir about midlife desire and a woman’s quest to let go. Fly, My Darling explores the resilience of love, the weight of loss, the undeniable pull toward freedom, and the transformation that occurs when a woman finally asks, What do I really want? Lisa—classical pianist, wife, and mother—yearns for something she can’t define. When she begins a study of jazz improv with a musician from the ‘70s girl band era, a woman with a renegade past who encourages her to let go both musically and emotionally, life takes an unexpected, irrevocable turn. With rhythmic, imaginative prose, the author paints a deeply immersive world, bringing to life moments of music, eroticism, loss, and renewal with breathtaking elegance. Based on her years together with musician and visionary composer Lynda Roth, past and present weave together in this profoundly moving memoir. Author: Lisa K. Richter Publication Date: April 21, 2026 -
For fans of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Lab Girl, an arresting memoir that chronicles a young woman’s journey from remote island research to Big Pharma and the boardroom. Elizabeth “Betsy” Aden, a twenty-something anthropology student, is clinging to academia as a safety net—until she’s offered a grant to spend the summer on a remote island in Melanesia, famously home to cannibals. Adventure calls, and Betsy doesn’t hesitate. Once she arrives, though, reality hits: no running water, no electricity, and no Western medicine. Inspired by her experiences, Betsy returns to school with a new perspective and changes her field from cultural anthropology to biomedical anthropology. Driven by a new purpose, she returns to Melanesia for two years to study the transmission hepatitis B and sets up an ingenious field laboratory to collect and test blood samples. Back at home, resourceful and determined Elizabeth successfully navigates the complicated “boys club” of academia. She explores teaching and advertising and finds a fit in biotech from which she builds a career in Big Pharma. That choice, along with her tenacity and willingness to take risks, propels Elizabeth on a meteoric rise to the senior executive suite in a large Swiss company and into the boardrooms of scrappy biotech companies. With electric detail and candid honesty, Mud, Microbes, and Medicine is a testimony of resilience and resolve in the face of challenges so large and unimaginable, you will wonder how Elizabeth’s story could even be true. Author: Elizabeth Reed Aden Publication Date: April 21, 2026 -
Set against the backdrop of vibrant 1980s LA, this wild and intimate debut memoir follows a young woman’s quest for marriage, meaning, and lasting happiness.
At thirty-two, Laurie outgrows her sleepy beach town and moves to the epicenter of the anything-goes eighties: Los Angeles. There, she befriends a teenage wizard and a Russian defector. She enrolls in a Hogwarts-style psychic college. She gets a job at a hilltop Hindu convent, where she considers taking her monastic vows. She dates an Indian guru and shares heart-to-heart conversations with a Catholic priest.
But it is only when her home nearly burns to the ground that Laurie finds what she is looking for: her true calling. Reading passages from a cache of 300 old diaries that were spared by the flames, Laurie locates clues planted in her past and gradually comes to a realization: She must let go of the conventional, “white-picket fence” marital vow she has sought for decades, and instead must fashion an entirely different kind of vow for herself.
With this knowledge in hand, Laurie sets about fulfilling her sacred contract. In turn, she experiences for the first time an intense rightness—a sense that this is how her life is meant to be.
Author: Laurie Collister
Publication Date: April 7, 2026
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Fans of Bill Bryson will love this intimate and humorous memoir surrounding a group of expats as they entertain each other with their stories at a bar in a Costa Rican village. Willa and her wife travel to Costa Rica to visit family—but what they discover is far more than they expected . In a sleepy fishing village on the Pacific coast, they meet a vibrant, curious group of expats who have come looking for paradise—or at least cheap beer. At the Pato Loco, a local bar where stories flow as freely as the drinks, they meet Mama, the blind seventy-two-year-old co-owner of the place; her partner Mary, Willa’s sister, a bartender and installation artist; Richie, the aging hippie whose words are few but weighty; and a whole cast of unforgettable characters who will answer questions like:- What is it really like to live in another country?
- How important is it to learn the local language?
- How does a tight-knit community face the pressure of development?
- Can you survive dengue—and would you want to?
- Oh, and how do you perform CPR on a fish?
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In this lyrical and artfully woven memoir, a short road trip to California’s Central Coast becomes an epic journey through family history, loss, and connection. When three generations of women—a Gen X narrator, her seventy-seven-year-old mother, and her twenty-two-year-old Gen Z daughter—set out for a quick trip to California's Central Coast, what begins as a road trip soon transforms into something far richer: a modern-day Odyssey. Over the course of three days, the three women brave a severe winter storm, encounter ravenous ostriches, walk through an enchanted light exhibit, binge-watch White Lotus, hunt for coffee with plant-based milk, bicker, reconcile, and share stories. Troika braids the narrative of a three-day road trip with the longer strands of migration, memory, and motherhood, creating a layered meditation on distance traveled—geographic, generational, and emotional. The result is a kaleidoscopic journey that traverses the landscapes of identity and family history and stretches from the horrors of the second world war and an escape from Soviet Russia to adolescence and motherhood in the suburbs of Silicon Valley. As the narrative swerves from heartbreak to hilarity, from Homeric detours and Russian proverbs to internet memes, it weaves together an intimate, poignant, and darkly funny meditation on how we get from where we were to where we are—and what we carry with us along the way. Author: Irena Smith Publication Date: April 7, 2026 -
A must-read for the millions who suffer from chronic illness, Soul-Happy is an inspiring and poetic account of navigating away from shame and life-threatening disease and into redemption and grace through a commitment to hard truths and unconditional love.
Nette Nilsson has big dreams and is in the midst of pursuing them—starting by leaving Denmark to attend university in Toronto, Canada—when she falls for a beguiling but volatile American. Their romance moves fast, and in what seems like no time she finds herself living a privileged but deeply unhappy life in New York with her now-husband, Cal. After suffering for too long, she finally begins to find her way onto a better path—only to be abruptly faced with a life-threatening physical condition. To survive and to heal, Nette must confront dark family lies and her hidden traumas and find her own power again.
In an era of increasing awareness regarding how many strong, intelligent women ignore their gut and lose themselves—and the lives they dream of having—when they become entangled with toxic men, Soul-Happy illuminates the underlying reasons for one promising young woman’s downhill slide after she falls for “the wrong kind of love,” and follows her harrowing battle to put herself back together again.
Author: Anette Nilsson
Publication Date: March 24, 2026
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For fans of Joan Didion and anyone fascinated by true crime, a daughter’s raw and unflinching account of California’s infamous murder trial of her mother, Lucille Miller—and the decades of emotional wreckage it left in its wake. On October 7, 1964, Debra Miller’s life turns upside down when her mother is arrested for the murder of her father. At only fourteen years old, Debra becomes a ward of the court, grappling with the unfathomable trauma of watching her mother’s trial and conviction—a devastation that is only amplified when her family’s tragedy is splashed across headlines nationwide and featured in Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Desperate to escape the notoriety of her family and utterly ill equipped to face the world, Debra spends her young adulthood sinking into mental illness, toxic relationships, and substance abuse. Meanwhile, her unrepentant mother, Lucille, uses Debra to supply contraband in prison. When Lucille is released, twentysomething Debra, seeking the love and support she so desperately desires, moves in with her—only to find herself constantly manipulated and dragged into her mother’s illegal activities. Torn between love and survival, Debra spends years trying to escape her mother’s vortex even as she battles her own demons. Ultimately, it’s only when Lucille passes away that Debra finally frees herself from her grip—and realizes she needs to change her life. In this raw and poignant memoir, Debra Miller bares the scars of an adolescence and adulthood shaped by the impact of a destructive mother and demonstrates that healing is always possible—even in the face of a past that just won’t let go. Author: Debra Miller Publication Date: March 24, 2026 -
For fans of Gloria Anzaldúa and all those who know what it is to grow up straddling more than one culture, a lyrical, timely exploration of what it’s like to live in the “in between”—and why it should matter to everyone. We are all shaped by the cultures that surround us—their expectations, ideals, and norms. But what happens when those cultures collide? When your mother embodies one world and your father another? In this profoundly personal follow-up to Portrait of a Feminist, Marianna Marlowe explores the intersections of race, class, and gender as they are molded by family, religion, and migration. Born to a Peruvian mother and an American father, Marlowe’s early life spanned continents—from the Philippines to Ecuador, Brazil to the United States—leaving her with a sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere at once. Through a series of thematically linked essays, she reflects on the complexities of identity, the fluidity of culture, and the enduring search for home. Now raising two sons with her Syrian Muslim husband, Marlowe continues to navigate the ever-shifting landscapes of culture, language, and faith. Inspired by scholar Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of the borderlands, Portrait of a Mestiza is both a meditation on life lived in the “in-between” spaces and a call to dismantle the binaries that divide us. Thought-provoking and deeply relevant, this collection urges us to embrace hybridity, challenge inherited limitations, and create for ourselves more ethical and expansive lives. Author: Marianna Marlowe Publication Date: March 24, 2026 -
For readers who wish Eat, Pray, Love had a cynical streak comes this propulsive, wildly original memoir about a journalist’s quest to conquer depression and addiction, set against the backdrop of international adventures and modern communal living. Through the eyes of others, Carly Schwartz seems to have everything going for her: top editor at the world’s biggest news site, fancy college degree, a seemingly endless parade of friends and parties. But she’s been struggling with crippling, suicidal depression since she was a teenager, and by her late twenties she has learned to cope with a steady diet of drugs, alcohol, and unavailable men. Then she meets a charismatic guy who invites her to move to the mysterious “sustainable town” he’s building in the Panamanian jungle. As Carly chases her appetite for adventure down to the equator, she ends up consumed by a darkness she can no longer hide from. And when she finally conjures the courage to confront her demons, she finds help where she least expects it. Equal parts hilarious and heart-wrenching, I’ll Try Anything Twice is a vivid and vulnerable portrayal of the search for belonging, the definition of success, and the risks we’re willing to take in order to learn how to love ourselves. Author: Carly Schwartz Publication Date: March 10, 2026 -
For fans of Daniella Mestyanek Young’s Uncultured and Tara Westover’s Educated, one woman’s gripping firsthand account of falling into—and eventually escaping—a female guru–led cult as she seeks her own personal awakening. Growing up under the sway of a Brooklyn housewife turned guru, Priya Hutner is drawn into a world shaped by bizarre rituals, spiritual promises, and oppressive beliefs. What begins as a quest for enlightenment unravels into a stifling reality as the boundaries between spiritual devotion and control blur—and as Priya becomes an integral part of the ashram community, sharing the guru’s teachings, she becomes further entangled in a web of spiritual control and manipulation. In this deeply personal memoir, Priya shares her struggle to break free from her guru and the cult-like grip to which she falls prey. Priya’s traumatic escape from the community marks a profound turning point as she regains personal power, rediscovers herself, and achieves true liberation in the process. A spiritual adventure story and a cautionary tale, Chasing Nirvana is a story of love, heartbreak, and redemption that offers a powerful reflection on the perils of blind faith and the beauty of reclaiming one’s life on one’s own terms. Priya’s story is a testament to the human spirit’s capacity for resilience, self-discovery, and freedom from the bondage of belief. Author: Priya Hutner Publication Date: March 3, 2026 -
For fans of Heather Lanier and Claire Bidwell Smith, Raising Rhia is a deeply moving memoir, written with vulnerability and grace, that explores the complexities of anticipatory grief while celebrating the unexpected joys found in everyday moments. The powerful story of a mother fighting for her daughter in a world unprepared for her needs. Born with multiple disabilities—including vision impairment, cerebellar ataxia, hearing loss, and mitochondrial disease—Rhia’s life unfolds in a maze of medical uncertainty and bureaucratic roadblocks. In this memoir, Terena Scott lays bare the relentless battles, raw grief, and fierce love that define her journey, refusing to let the system—or fate—dictate her daughter’s future. Told in six poignant sections—Dreams, Fear, Hope, Loss, Grief, and Love—Raising Rhia captures the complexities of parenting a child with disabilities, balancing everyday joys with the weight of anticipatory grief. At its heart, it is a story of resilience, connection, and seeing a child for who she is, rather than what she has. Both a deeply personal narrative and a reflection on the broader realities of raising a child with disabilities in the United States, Scott’s candid and compassionate account offers insight, solidarity, and hope for parents and caregivers facing similar challenges—and anyone seeking joy inside the burden of grief. Author: Terena Scott Publication Date: February 17, 2026 -
A soul-searching LGBTQ memoir about one woman’s attempt to plan her way to happily ever after—only to realize that healing, self-discovery, and love happen in their own time. Days after Corey’s breakup, a photo of her ex wrapped in the arms of another woman goes viral on Facebook. Confronted with this gleeful boast about “happily ever after,” Corey, a forty-something lesbian, decides that she can’t live in a state of perpetual loneliness, plagued with the burden of her own failure in finding happiness and love. Armed with her meticulously crafted checklist, Corey embarks on a mission to heal, move on, and find “the one.” But no matter how many items she checks off her list or how faithfully she follows the sage wisdom of psychics, her breakup coach, and the legendary rapper Eminem, her hope in finding her one true love begins to fade away—until she’s suddenly torn between two. Now, with her heart unexpectedly on the line, Corey must find out what she really wants—and where her true happiness lies. Author: Corey Seemiller Publication Date: February 10, 2026 -
This intimate, poignant, and compelling memoir tells the story of a woman—a “reluctant examiner” of death—navigating grief while caring for her dying brother and aging parents, inviting the reader into a journey of hope, growth, and resilience. Deborah Cummins is “a stranger to death”—until, in 2007, she learns that her brother, Joe, is dying. In the months that follow, as Joe’s health declines, Deborah confronts hidden truths in an attempt to make sense of her brother’s death while he’s still alive—truths that, in retrospect, where perhaps not so hidden after all. But before she’s able to fully grasp her brother’s worsening condition, Deborah is confronted with another family crisis: between complications following a recent surgery and her heartbreak over her son’s condition, Deborah’s mother’s health is waning as well. After the death of her brother at only forty-five years old, her mother’s death shortly follows, and Deborah must navigate grief compounded. Spanning the country from a small town in Maine to the sprawling metropolises of Chicago and Phoenix, Threshold skillfully and poignantly examines familial relationships between child, parent, and siblings, providing evocative portraits of each. Author: Deborah Cummins Publication Date: February 3, 2026 -
For fans of Eat, Pray, Love and Without Reservations, a captivating memoir of one woman’s bold leap into reinvention—trading academia for adventure, storytelling, and self-discovery in the heart of London. What happens when a burnt-out professor trades academia for a fresh start in the city of her dreams—only to find reinvention far tougher than she imagined? At sixty-five, Rebecca Knuth walks away from the security and status of academia, determined to reimagine herself in London. She craves more—more creativity, more stories, more life. Immersing herself in the city’s literary and cultural world, she enrolls in a creative nonfiction masters program, trains as a guide, joins the prestigious London Library, and reclaims her voice as a writer. London becomes her muse, a place of transformation where shedding her old identity is inseparable from rebuilding herself as a woman. But change is never simple. Her mother’s health declines. Rebecca lands in intensive care. She’s harassed on the Underground. Exhaustion takes hold. Doubt creeps in—about her ambition, her motivation, even her sense of belonging. Where exactly is home? A memoir of reinvention, resilience, and self-discovery, London Sojourn speaks to retirees, creatives, and seekers longing to step beyond certainty into something new. Author: Rebecca Knuth Publication Date: January 27, 2026 -
A fresh take on the loss memoir, Piece by Piece follows a middle-aged mother forced to reconcile the theft of precious keepsakes with the memories and people the items represent. If things are “just things,” why does it hurt so deeply when we lose them? When a home burglary strips Kim Danielson of heirlooms and other special keepsakes, she loses more than the items themselves. She is also robbed of tangible connections to her history, and physical reminders of loved ones who have died—igniting grief both old and new. Feeling the weight of disappointment for future generations who cannot inherit a piece of her family’s legacy, Kim creates a new and lasting heirloom, one that can never be stolen. Perfect for anyone who has ever lost anything of meaningful value, this book provides solace and a new perspective on material possessions. A practical template for preserving a legacy with or without artifacts, Piece by Piece offers a unique take on loss through the lens of stolen objects and invites readers to tell the stories of their lives by telling the stories of their things. Author: Kim Danielson Publication Date: January 27, 2026 -
From an author with a psychology background, a candid memoir about the interior of her own psychotic episode and its origins in guilt, lost purpose, conflict between mothering and career, and the ambiguity in her relationship with her therapist. After the culture shock of moving from a small Wisconsin town to the tumult of Los Angeles in 1967, Linda’s family disintegrates: her parents decide to divorce, and she and her younger brother, Brian, suddenly must fend for themselves. While she finds a foothold in academic pursuits, Brian spirals downward into schizophrenia and, finally, commits an irrevocable act. Plagued with guilt, Linda loses her sense of purpose, abandons a promising career in psychology, and finds herself in a life she never envisioned—poor, alcoholic, an accidental parent in an unhappy marriage, feeling invisible and alone. When Linda sees a psychologist, Sam, he helps her recover what she has lost: her sense of self. Feeling truly seen, she falls in love with him and suspects her feelings might be reciprocated. This ambiguity, mingled with other overwhelming stresses, triggers her descent into a psychotic episode—one that echoes her dreams, Brian’s experience, and Sam’s own phobia. Will Linda follow in her brother’s footsteps, or is this the wake-up call she needed to correct her course? Author: Linda Bass Publication Date: January 20, 2026 -
For fans of Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary, a woman’s personal journey unfolds in a historically documented and scientifically elucidated memoir of lifelong struggle to overcome CPTSD with the help of psychedelics. In 2009 following a breast cancer diagnosis, Rex found herself spiraling into a depression that led her to a groundbreaking clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University in 2012, where she was given two doses of psilocybin. As she reflects on her tumultuous childhood marked by violent abuse from psychiatrist parents, Rex uncovers the psychological influences that shaped her life and therapeutic search. Her journey intersects with a dark history of psychological experimentation, including the work of Harvard’s Dr. Henry A. Murray—her mother’s mentor—whose controversial research influenced modern psychology and led to the psychopathology of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Despite years of failed conventional treatments, Rex sought alternative paths, discovering transformative healing through ayahuasca, MDMA, and 5-MeO-DMT. Seeing What Is There navigates the complexities of the psychedelic therapy movement, questioning its ethical pitfalls and motivations. Ultimately, Rex demonstrates that true healing requires more than just pharmaceuticals—it demands economic security, community, and social support, offering a powerful meditation on trauma, survival, and the potential for transformation. Author: Erica Rex Publication Date: January 13, 2026 -
For readers who loved Marley & Me, a poignant memoir about cats, dogs, and what it means to forge a friendship—in life and in death—with a person you can never meet. Betsy Pauly died five years before Jen Braaksma knew she had even lived. Betsy was an artist and writer hailing from Minnesota, Texas, Missouri, and Florida. Jen is an author and book coach from Ottawa, Canada. Yet, improbably, Betsy became Jen’s friend. When Betsy died, she left behind a heartbroken husband, a hole in the hearts of her family and friends, and a half-finished manuscript. To honor his wife, Chips wanted to publish her animal stories—Betsy was a dedicated animal welfare advocate who could never say no to a stray dog or cat (or dozens!). Turning manuscripts around is Jen’s job. But as she worked, she never expected to form a friendship with the woman on the page. How was that even possible? Readers might feel they “know” an author by their writing, but Jen’s experience went further. She got to see Betsy’s drafts and her process. She got to see Betsy’s mind. And in doing so, she got to know this extraordinary woman. This may be Jen’s journey, but it’s Betsy’s story. A story about dedication, passion, and the connection that comes from sharing your authentic self—even between two people who can never meet. Author: Jen Braaksma and Betsy Pauly Publication Date: December 9, 2025 -
For fans of Chanel Cleeton’s Next Year in Havana, a real-life story of how a young woman’s five-day trip to Cuba, her mother’s birthplace, completely changed her view of herself as a second-generation American. When Barbara Caver was growing up in South Carolina, her Cuban roots were as mysterious as the embargoed island her mother had been born on but left in 1959. For Barbara, Cuba represented a heritage that she’d never understood and couldn’t fully embrace. When she moved from South Carolina to New York, the vibrant diversity of the city and new friendships with other Cuban Americans made her curious about her mother’s home country. Finally, in 2017, she traveled to Cuba. Immediately upon arriving in Havana, Barbara was struck by a sense of the familiar: tiles on a backsplash looked like tiles in her grandparents’ home, the airport smelled like a childhood memory, local dishes tasted like her grandmother’s cooking, and a morning stroll through Vedado delivered her to the front gate of her great-grandmother’s home—despite the fact that she didn’t have the address. She wasn’t just visiting a foreign country; she was being welcomed home. Part travel adventure, part ghost story, and part memoir, A Little Piece of Cuba: A Journey To Become Cubana-Americanais an imaginative and humorous personal journey through Barbara’s memories and experiences as she discovers that she is and has always been more Cuban than she thought. Author: Barbara Caver Publication Date: December 2, 2025 -
For fans of The Good Wife and Suits, the true story of a passionately principled young female judge in the man’s world of the ’60s and ’70s who is forced to defend her judgeship against two male challengers in a grueling election—while pregnant with her second child. Janet Kintner could have ended up just another victim of the system. Abused as a child, sexually assaulted as a young woman, the odds were not in her favor—but instead of letting these experiences destroy her, she used them as fuel in pursuit of her dreams. By twenty-four, she was a newly minted lawyer determined to secure justice for everyone, regardless of their gender, race, religion, or income. In 1968, the District Attorney’s office told Kintner, “We will not hire a woman lawyer.” Men dominated the legal system. Undaunted, she established herself as a lawyer who represented low-income people and, eventually, as a high-profile prosecutor specializing in consumer fraud. San Diego lawyers elected her the third woman ever to the County Bar Association Board of Directors. In her private practice, she continued to help everyone she could, often pro bono. In 1976, when Kintner was thirty-one and pregnant, Governor Jerry Brown appointed her the third female judge in history in San Diego—a move that didn’t sit well with some men in her field. Two years later, two men challenged Kintner, a mother pregnant with her second baby, in the nastiest judicial election of the year. In the coming months, Kintner struggled to balance her time between her children, working full-time in a stressful job, and campaigning. She didn’t want to let other women, present and future, down. But was San Diego ready to elect a female judge? Author: Janet Kintner Publication Date: December 2, 2025 -
Female body hatred and fear have been reinforced by religion and culture for centuries, but can be transformed with female agency driven by unearthing and living healthy narratives of female strength and sacredness that will change laws and lives. Hundreds of female eyes, locked in oil and clay, latch onto Jacquelyn’s body as she wanders the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Female images frozen in frames and on pedestals as virgins and victims adrift in a sea of male kings and conquerors. The fierce female gaze ignites a panic attack, and she swears she can hear their plea: Set us free. Two months later, a dream as insistent as the female eyes shakes her awake with a question: Where is my rogue? She searches New York sidewalks and Montana meadows. When she awakens, she knows her rogue is not outside but in. Jacquelyn knew rogue energy as a child but puberty stole her away. The eyes insist she get the energy back. How? By acknowledging her innate female agency, and replacing obsessions over external appearance with trust for her body, instincts, intuition and dream wisdom. Search, the eyes urge, for female rogue-models through time, and scour history for lies and blank spaces. Reject the biggest lie of all: sin wallpapers female bodies. Rogue is her passion and soul. “Be fierce,” rogue commands. “I am your body, soul, intellect and self.” Jacquelyn says yes. The eyes have it. Author: Jacquelyn L. Jackson Publication Date: November 11, 2025
