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In the summer of 1979, Diane Meyer Lowman, a nineteen-year-old Middlebury College student, embarked on a ten-week working trip aboard a German container ship with a mostly male crew. The journey would take her from New York to Australia and New Zealand and back, through the lush Panama Canal, to a Koala sanctuary and a Maori Museum. She swabbed decks and mended linens, navigated not only the Panama Canal, but perhaps more harrowingly the awkward and sometimes threatening mostly male shipboard society and its politics. The voyage would forever change her perspective on the world and her place in it. She left the port of New York a subservient, malleable girl and sailed back past the Statue of Liberty on her return as a more confident, independent, resilient young woman who’d learned to stand on her own two feet even if the roughest of waters. Author: Diane Meyer Lowman Publication Date: November 13, 2018 -
In the 1980s and 1990s, a mind-boggling social panic over child sex abuse swept through the country, landing childcare workers in prison and leading hundreds of women to begin recalling episodes of satanic ritual abuse and childhood abuse by family members. Now I Can See the Moon: A Memoir is a deeply personal account of the devastating impact the panic had on one family. In trying to understand the suicide of her twenty-three-year-old niece, a victim of the panic, the author discovers that what she thought was an isolated tragedy was, in fact, part of a much larger social phenomenon that sucked in individuals from all walks of life, convincing them to believe the unbelievable and embrace the most aberrant claims as truth. Author: Alice Tallmadge Publication Date: April 24, 2018 -
Odyssey of Ashes: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Letting Go begins with the sudden death of Cheryl Krauter’s spouse. Five months later, in a stroke of irony and magic, her husband wins a long-desired guided fly fishing trip in a raffle—and Cheryl decides to go in his place, fulfilling a promise to scatter his ashes by a trout stream. Part I of this memoir is an account of the first year after Cheryl’s husband’s death, where she becomes an explorer in the infinite stream of grief and loss, a time traveler between the darkness of sorrow and the light of daily life. Part II concludes with stories of the poignant and humorous adventures she had during the ensuing year. Tying it all together and woven throughout is Cheryl’s account of the creation of an altar assembled during the three-day ritual of Los Días de los Muertos. Poetic and mythological, Odyssey of Ashes is a raw story of loss and the deep transformation that traveling through darkness and returning to light can bring. Publication Date: July 20, 2021 Author: Cheryl Krauter -
“Of This Much I'm Sure says it--the truths we keep secret. It goes there: messy and beautiful and complicated and terrifying and, ultimately, joyful. It's a story about fighting like hell. It's a story that is more necessary than ever before.” —Megan Stielstra, The Wrong Way To Save Your Life At twenty-two, Chicagoan Nadine Kenney is thrilled to meet her future husband, Jamie, while vacationing in Florida. After a whirlwind, long-distance romance, Nadine leaves her friends, family, and city to join Jamie in suburban Massachusetts. Once married, they begin trying for a baby without knowing how hard that road will become. Nadine soon faces the little-known horrors of IVF when a procedure causes severe internal bleeding, and she wakes up from emergency surgery with a six-inch scar instead of a baby bump. In the difficult year that follows, anxiety and additional failed fertility treatments threaten her new marriage and her mental state. By some saving grace, she eventually becomes pregnant naturally, but the horrors are not over: her son is diagnosed with potentially terminal kidney complications. Ultimately, Nadine learns that in an unpredictable life, the only thing she can be sure of is the healing power of hope. Author: Nadine Kenney Johnstone Publication Date: April 11, 2017 -
Fifteen-year-old Hannah was a privileged young girl with a promising future, but that didn’t stop her from sliding into an abyss of sex, drugs, alcohol, and other high-risk behaviors. Off the Rails narrates Hannah’s sudden decline and subsequent treatment through the raw, honest, compelling voices of Hannah and her shocked and desperate mother―each one telling her side of the story. Fearing that they couldn’t keep their teen safe, Hannah’s parents made the agonizing decision to send her to a wilderness program, and then to residential treatment. Off the Rails tells the story of the two tough years Hannah spent in three separate programs―and ponders the factors that contributed to her ultimate recovery. Written for parents of teens experimenting with high-risk behaviors, as well as those trying to navigate the controversial world of teen treatment programs, Off the Rails is an inspiring story of family love, determination, and the last-resort intervention that helped one troubled young woman find sobriety after a terrifying and harrowing journey. Author: Susan Burrowes Publication Date: October 23, 2018 -
In this no-holds-barred, provocative book, Terri Laxton Brooks tells a story that often remains hidden— that of a successful professional who has many friends and family and yet all her life has struggled with a loneliness she’s never revealed to anyone. Terri thinks her feelings of isolation will end with her marriage to her childhood sweetheart and their move from a farm town to the city of Chicago. But once the sheen of newlywed passion wears off, her husband, by nature reticent, grows even more emotionally distant. In her new job as a reporter for a Chicago paper, Terri hides her loneliness under a flurry of bylines and deadlines. But she can’t shake a feeling she’s had since childhood—of failure to connect, not just as a wife but also as a daughter, friend, and colleague—and soon she and her husband separate. Adrift, Terri contemplates suicide. Could a move to different city, to a fresh start, solve her problem? Terri’s decision to transplant herself to New York City forces her hand in a way she never imagined: it plunges her into a loneliness so total that out of desperation she grabs the key to her own salvation— ; love of interviewing, researching, hearing people’s stories. After starting therapy, her curiosity leads her into four years of soul-searching conversations with America’s leading psychologists and psychiatrists about how to cope with loneliness, why it is a normal and necessary stage of healthy growth, and how to stop resisting it. She explores with growing understanding intimate details of her dreams, her past traumas, and her role in her own loneliness—and learns not only how to live comfortably with that loneliness but how to use it to her advantage. Author: Terri Laxton Brooks Publication Date: November 29, 2022 -
In 1957, when Amy Turner was four years old, her father had to be talked down from a hotel ledge by a priest. The story of his attempted suicide received nationwide press coverage, and he spent months in a psychiatric facility before returning home. From then on, Amy constantly worried about him for reasons she didn't yet fully understand, triggering a pattern of hypervigilance that would plague her into adulthood. In 2010, fifty-five years after her father’s attempted suicide, Amy—now a wife, mother, and lawyer-turned-schoolteacher—is convinced she’s dealt with all the psychological reverberations of her childhood. Then she steps into a crosswalk and is mowed down by a pickup truck—an accident that nearly kills her, and that ultimately propels her on a remarkable emotional journey. With the help of acupuncture, somatic-oriented therapies, and serendipities that might be attributed to grace, Amy first unravels the trauma of her own brush with death and then, unexpectedly, heals the childhood trauma buried far deeper. Poignant and intimate, On the Ledge is Amy’s insightful and surprisingly humorous chronicle of coming to terms with herself and her parents as the distinct, vulnerable individuals they are. Perhaps more meaningfully, it offers proof that no matter how far along you are in life, it's never too late to find yourself. Author: Amy B. Turner Publication Date: September 6, 2022 -
“Vivid and engaging, this memoir shows, with honesty and intelligence, the appeal of Pentecostal religiosity to a sensitive and searching teenager... Gelsinger’s excellent storytelling provides illuminating vignettes on her experience and how it was so often laced with doubt even as she sought certainty… A well-written, honest memoir that takes a multilayered view of revival.” —Kirkus Reviews Carly Gelsinger is an awkward and lonely thirteen-year-old when she stumbles into Pine Canyon Assemblies of God, the cracked stucco church on the outskirts of her remote small town. She assimilates, despite her apprehensions, because she is desperate to belong. Soon, she is on fire for God. She speaks in tongues, slays demons, and follows her abusive pastor’s every word―and it’s not until her life is burnt to the ground that she finds the courage to leave. Raw and illuminating, Once You Go In is a coming-of-age story about the beauty and danger of absolute faith, and the stories people tell themselves to avoid their deepest fears. Author: Carly Gelsinger Publication Date: October 16, 2018 -
Melissa Harris’s dream of being a mother again shatters when a fertility doctor tells her she may never have another child due to a physical anomaly in her uterus. Determined to persevere, she undergoes nine surgeries and a year of fertility treatments until she finally gets a positive pregnancy test—only to miscarry both twins within the first fifteen weeks. When what she’s decided will be her last attempt results in her finally becoming pregnant, she’s told that this baby, Sam, is also at risk. While lying in a hospital bed for six days, trying to get to the golden standard twenty-four-week gestation mark, Melissa makes a decision—she will give this baby every chance to live, no matter what it takes. One Pound, Twelve Ounces is the journey of one mother’s determination to give her micro-preemie a fighting chance, and the story of that baby’s remarkable battle to survive. Author: Melissa Harris Publication Date: November 2, 2021 -
A parent should never outlive their own child, yet this is the position Janice Jensen found herself in after the drowning of her nine-year-old son. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Janice dedicated herself to her roles as mother to her surviving daughter and wife to her devastated husband even as she grappled with her grief. As a non-swimmer, Janice experienced water’s unforgiving power through the loss of her son, but as time went on, she also learned to appreciate its redemptive and healing properties. She sculled symbolic and real rivers, taking the necessary side channels to find waves that soaked peace and happiness into her body, mind, and heart. She learned to sail. And she fell in love with ballroom dancing, a passion that eventually led her back to the very place where she lost her son. A poignant, heartfelt story that takes readers through the everyday ups and downs of life after a tragedy and highlights the need to view each person’s grief journey and timeline as unique. One Ripple at a Time comforts readers and, through decades of the author’s personal quest, imparts a crucial message: The best of you is just around the bend. Author: Janice Jensen Publication Date: October 15, 2024 -
A full one-fifth of the United States has engaged in consensual non-monogamy (CNM) at some point in their lives, and 29 percent of adults under thirty today consider open relationships to be morally acceptable—yet there are few resources to turn to when it comes to navigating this more non-traditional and explorative territory. Picking up where CNM self-help books like Open Up, The Ethical Slut, and More Than Two leave off, Open Deeplytackles the most difficult challenges posed by CNM. Therapist Kate Loree—who has practiced non-monogamy since 2003, and who specializes in treating clients who also practice non-monogamy—pulls no punches as she uses vignettes based on her own life, as well as her clients’ experiences, to illustrate the highs, lows, and in-betweens of life as a consensual non-monogamist. Interwoven with these stories are thorough explanations of how attachment theory impacts non-monogamy, how blending cutting-edge, neurobiology-informed grounding skills with effective communication skills will make even the most challenging conversations regarding non-monogamy manageable, and more. The result is a compassionate, attachment-focused template for non-monogamy that will allow readers to avoid pitfalls and find adventure while concurrently building healthy relationships. Non-monogamy is a wild and woolly ride—and Open Deeply is here to help make it a great one. Author: Kate Loree Pub Date: April 19, 2022 -
As a young doctor working in the middle of the HIV epidemic in the early ’90s, Alicia Blando feels unsure of the effectiveness of the medical profession. To gain insight into her life’s path, she seeks advice in some unconventional places, and lands on astrology as her way forward. Astrology, based in astronomy, has specific rules; it can’t be easily manipulated. The scientist in her can’t help but respond to this idea. At a pivotal group demonstration, Alicia finds a mentor, Iris, who introduces her to the study of astrology. By learning to read the horoscope, Alicia gains insight into her potential and manifests her ambition to travel and explore healing techniques from indigenous cultures. Eventually, her search for new teachers and past knowledge takes her from Manhattan to the Peruvian Amazon, Belize, and Bolivia, where she discovers ancient ways of healing among people who consider the sky to be a continuation of nature on earth. She connects with the tenets of astrology as the language that describes man’s connection to the sky environment. The horoscopic map gives information that can assist in making better choices in life, Alicia learns; it has the potential to analyze a person’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and health concerns. Alicia’s journey off the beaten path ultimately leads her to true self-exploration and connection with the world around her, as well as a desire to share her knowledge. In Open for Interpretation, she shares her story of finally finding the map she’s been seeking—and explains how we can all use that map to access our true selves and untapped potential. Pub Date: June 27, 2023 Author: Alicia Blando, MD -
If you believe in the power of dreams and intentions, this inspirational coming-of-age memoir set in 1950s Australia where an immigrant girl swimmer turns challenges and disappointments into opportunities for success is for you. Henny was just a little girl when she experienced brutal violence and hunger in WWII Amsterdam, but she is now a teenage immigrant swimmer in 1950s Australia where she must learn to turn challenges into success. She is smart, she swims fast, and she has definite opinions about the kind of woman she intends to be. She hears the timeless Land speak and sees the Southern Cross as a beacon when she walks in the bush with her father. She enjoys swimming star fame and championship victories and turns to the pool in her search to belong, to face fears and dashed hopes, until at every turn she sees more clearly her unique path ahead. “Intentions are like prayers, if you pay attention they come back as destiny,” her mother has taught her. Is it intention or destiny that propels this young New Australian into her future long life? Author: Hendrika de Vries Publication Date: September 2, 2025 -
“…a witty and moving story which truly captures the sense of wonder, self-discovery, and adventure that unfolds when one throws caution to the wind and ventures out into the world alone.” —D. Cameron, Stone Head Press In 1994, at the age of 64 with no business experience and very little start-up money, Nancy Hinchliff buys a turn-of-the-century mansion in Louisville, Kentucky and turns it into a charming Victorian Inn. Through sheer tenacity, she learns the business while successfully coping with one mishap after another. An admittedly asocial retired school teacher, she reinvents herself as an Inn keeper. The reader is drawn into this humorous and engaging tale as the author wields her way around cantankerous contractors, harrowing housekeepers, and no shortage of strange and interesting guests and events. Through her collected stories, Hinchliff gives readers a personal, in-depth, and honest look at what it’s like to be an inn keeper as she candidly describes her twenty-year journey of self discovery. Author: Nancy Hinchliff Publication Date: June 6, 2017 -
Our Divide: Two Sides of Locked in Syndrome is the story of the other side, the side of LaDonna the pregnant wife of Cleve, who at age twenty-seven, is struck down by an obstruction in the brain stem leaving him with locked-in syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that causes most victims to remain mute and paralyzed. Unlike Jean-Dominique Bauby (1997) in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Cleve “locked in” his unresponsive body is unable to sit up in a wheel chair or communicate by blinking an eye. Our Divide is a beautifully written, honest accounting of the experience of a family member watching a loved one suffer. Harrison delivers both a peek into the world of a unique other and an intimate view of one young woman’s grieving process. This heart-breaking story braids a grief narrative, coming of age and survival narrative into the memoir genre, creating a genuine, honest portrayal of one woman’s mistakes and courage while learning how to take responsibility and create a life for herself. This memoir embraces sadness and trauma, life lessons, love and hope. Readers will be swept away. Author: LaDonna Harrison Publication Date: August 10, 2021 -
Laraine Burrell gets the call to come back to England from the United States just in time to visit briefly with her father before he passes away. Following his death, she is overcome with grief, feeling that she has squandered the time she had with her father. Instead of staying close, she chose to travel the world and seek her own goals as a young woman, always thinking there would be time later on to tell her dad all the things she wanted to tell him—how much she loved him, and how he was her hero. Now, she realizes, it’s too late. Wanting to do something significant for her father to make up for her neglect, Burrell reflects on the fascinating life her father, a Royal Yachtsman, led—and decides that the one thing she can do for him is to tell his exceptional life story and make sure he is not forgotten. Our Grand Finale is the culmination of that effort—an exploration of both the author’s and her father’s unusual life experiences, and a reminder that “later” doesn’t always come. Author: Laraine Denny Burrell Publication Date: October 17, 2017 -
The year was 1972. The place was rural Pennsylvania. Civil rights, the Vietnam War, and counterculture youth who were defying their traditional parents had the nation in social upheaval. Lynda was white, an anxious but earnest free spirit studying poetry, peyote, and peaceful protest at her small university. TJ was black, a talented athlete recruited from the inner city to win basketball games for Lynda’s hometown college. Their chemistry was irresistible, but their schools were hours apart—so, in the days before email, cell phones, and video chat apps to connect them, they reached out to each other in the only way possible: letters. Songs and prose penned late into the night revealed a longing that neither had felt before. TJ used music to show Lynda his sensitive side and deep desire for true love. Lynda strove to leave her conservative upbringing behind, to see truths beyond skin color and the pressure—for women, especially—to conform. But their connection, though deep, was also fragile. Racist parents, a jealous friend, and a prior lover who came back to claim Lynda ultimately unraveled the delicate fabric woven by their words. Now, four decades later, Lynda and TJ may have another chance. Can they take it? This sensual memoir by human sexuality professor Lynda Smith Hoggan lays bare the raw contradictions between social expectations and the heart’s desires—and leaves readers pondering what love might look like in a world where we are truly free. Author: Lynda Smith Hoggan Pub Date: October 11, 2022 -
We all tell ourselves stories about who we are. Many of these stories are self-critical and disempowering. Through the practice of self-compassion, we can rewrite these stories and become more authentic and powerful versions of ourselves—transforming not only our own lives but also the lives of those around us. In short and personal pieces, Marianne Ingheim tells the story of how the practice of self-compassion have changed her life in ways big and small ways, helping her unlearn harsh self-criticism, survive multiple tragedies, and live more authentically. In the wake of a breast cancer diagnosis and her husband’s suicide, she discovers the power of self-compassionate storytelling and finds belonging within herself—and in doing so, she learns how to manage anxiety and stress, how to be authentic in relationships, and how to let go of comparison and be truly creative. Through stories and journaling prompts, Out of Love: Finding Your Way Back to Self-Compassion aims to inspire readers to unlearn the self-critical patterns holding them hostage—and begin to live a happier, more courageous life. Author: Marianne Ingheim Publication Date: May 26, 2020 -
Relocated with her family to Cold War–era West Germany, Army Brat and middle sister of three Mary grapples with the torment exacted by her older sister, the high moral expectations of her military father, and societal pressure to conform to traditional gender roles during the rise of the feminism movement. Through the transformative power of place, travel, and the people she encounters, Mary embarks on a journey of self-discovery, learning about social justice and finding her voice in a world still shaped by male dominance. Rich with historical context, Out of Place is a poignant and compelling exploration of identity, personal growth, and the enduring strength that comes from embracing one’s purpose. Author: Mary McKnight Publication Date: December 3, 2024 -
Irene Sardanis was born into a Greek family in the Bronx in the 1940s in which fear and peril hovered. Her mother had come to New York for an arranged marriage. Her father drank, gambled, and enjoyed other women—and then, when Irene was eleven, abandoned her family altogether. Faced with their mother’s violent outbursts in the wake of this betrayal, Irene’s older siblings found a way out, but Irene was trapped, hostage to her mother’s rage and despair. When she finally escaped her mother as a young adult, she married a neighbor, also Greek, who controlled and dominated her just like her mother always had. But Irene wasn’t ready to let her story end there. With therapy, she eventually found the courage to leave her husband and pursue her own dreams. Out of the Bronx is her story of coming to terms with the mother and past that terrified and paralyzed her for far too long—and of how she went on to create a new life free of those fears. Author: Irene Sardanis Publication Date: May 14, 2019 -
“A compelling, intimately personal, insightful, and ultimately inspirational account, Painting Life: My Creative Journey Through Trauma, is very highly recommended for both community and academic library collections.” ―Midwest Book “Carol is an evolved being and talented storyteller. I found her spiritual approach to work and life truly inspirational. She shares very personal, intense, powerful life experiences that have guided her on a path to help her integrate her emotional and spiritual health. Painting Life is a gem that offers healing insights for all of us to treasure.” ―Louis deSabla, publisher of Pathways Magazine When Carol Walsh pulled her fiancé from the bottom of a diving well—dead from a massive heart attack—her life was turned upside down. Even though she was a psychotherapist working with clients suffering from trauma, this personal shock felt unbearable. Nonetheless, she had to heal herself while supporting clients—and, as a single mother, her two children. Using the creative interests she’d developed during childhood in order to emotionally save herself from a difficult mother, she fully recovered from her grief and PTSD symptoms—and as she recreated her personal, artistic, and professional life, she began to thrive. Author: Carol Walsh Publication Date: November 15, 2016 -
A wife and mother of a grown son and two teen daughters, a woman enjoying her career and life, Mary Jo Doig wants nothing more from life than to live out her days embraced by the deep roots of family, friends, and her community. Tightly wrapped in a life-long protective cocoon, she has no idea how wounded she is―until, on one starless night following the death of a relative, she has a flashback that opens a dark passageway back to her childhood and the horrific secrets buried deep inside her psyche. Part mystery and part inspirational memoir, Patchwork is the riveting story of one woman who strived to live a life full of love, only to endure tragedies with two of her children and struggles in her marriages―the consequences of a mysterious life-long behavior unnoticed by her family or teachers. Like a needle stitching together a quilt, the memories Mary Jo recovers following her first flashback show her why her early years were threaded with a need to be invisible, as well as core beliefs that she was stupid, not good enough, and vastly different from her peers. Shattered by these revelations, overcome by depression, hopelessness, and a loss of trust in others, Mary Jo embarks on a healing journey through the underground of her life that ultimately leads to transformation. Author: Mary Jo Doig Publication Date: October 23, 2018 -
WINNER: 2015 International Book Awards, Best Multicultural Nonfiction FINALIST: 2015 IndieFab in Travel FINALIST: 2015 International Book Awards, Best New Nonfiction Fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants mom Jennifer Magnuson knew her spoiled suburban brood needed a wake-up call—she just couldn’t find the time to fit one in. But when her husband was offered a position in India, she saw it for what it was: the perfect opportunity for her family to unplug from their over-scheduled and pampered lives in Nashville and gain some much-needed perspective. What she didn’t realize was how much their time in India would transform her as well. Peanut Butter and Naan is Magnuson’s hilarious look at the chaos of parenting against a backdrop of malaria, extreme poverty, and no conveniences of any kind—and her story of rediscovering herself and revitalizing her connection with those she loves the most. Hers is a story about motherhood that will not only make you laugh and nod with recognition—it will inspire you to fall in love with your own family all over again Author: Jennifer Hillman-Magnuson Publication Date: November 11, 2014 -
2015 International Book Awards: Finalist, Management and Leadership Do you find yourself and your employees less engaged and less productive in the workplace than you would like? According to a Gallup poll, more than 70 percent of the American workforce today is “unengaged”—which means that most of the people in your organization are only showing up to work to go through the motions and collect their paycheck. But there’s something you can do to change that. In People Leadership, Gina Folk covers thirty proven techniques that she learned and utilized during a twenty-five-year career managing people at a Fortune 500 company. Unlike many of the leadership theories you’ll find out there, Folk’s teachings have been implemented and shown to work with real people in real situations. Using Folk’s practices, any individual charged with managing or supervising others at any level can learn to re-engage their employees and improve their company’s productivity—and become the boss they’ve always wanted to be. Author: Gina Folk Publication Date: April 21, 2015
