What inspired you to write your memoir?
Whisper My Secret is my mother’s memoir. The inspiration to write it came as a result of discovering her secret after she died. I went on a journey to try to find out why she had been separated from her first three children. At some point during that journey I decided to write about what had happened to her, partly because she had had to live with misplaced guilt and shame that forced her to suppress the tragedy that had so deeply impacted on her. She once told me that it was okay to tell a secret if I whispered it. However, I decided to disobey her and tell the world her secret as a declaration that she had nothing to feel shame or gult about.

About your Book:
How does a mother cope when she is forced to walk away from her three children and never see them again? That is what happened to JB’s mother, Myrtle. Eventually, rescued from her despair by tall, dark and handsome George Rowley who fell in love her, Myrtle started a new life and had seven more children. She buried the grief of losing her first children deep within and kept her pain secret. JB and her siblings were unaware of the existence of Myrtle’s first three children until after she died. Desperate to know how such a thing could happen to a devoted and caring mother, JB went on a journey to find out. What she discovered was a heartbreaking story of loss. It was a long time before JB was able to work out that her mother kept her early life and her first family secret out of misplaced guilt and shame. To redress that, JB decided to tell the whole world her mother’s secret. Whisper My Secret is a proud declaration that Myrtle did nothing deserving of guilt or shame.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
Whisper My Secret was first published in 2007 through Zeus Publications in Australia. When my contract with Zeus expired I republished the book as an ebook through Amazon which provided a tremendous opportunity for writers to reach readers all over the world.

How do you see writing a Memoir as different from writing other genres of books?
I can compare writie a memoir to writing fiction. There is a huge difference in the amount of research that has to be done. Even though I am writing about people and places I know I had to verify that my memories were correct and fill in the gaps by doing research. Initially the research I did was for my own satisfaction but when the project became a book, I needed to undertake even more research. That aspect of writing non-fiction slows down the writing. Even though there is research involved in writing fiction it does not usually need to be as detailed and does not seem to wlow down the writing in the same way.

Author Bio:
JB Rowley grew up in a small Australian town called Orbost in the state of Victoria as one of seven children. She spent my childhood chasing snakes and lizards down hollow logs, playing Hansel and Gretel in the bush with her brothers, climbing trees, searching the local rubbish tip for books to read and generally behaving like a feral child. When she wasn’t scrapping with her brothers she was curled up in the hayshed reading books.
She now lives in Melbourne (Australia) where, when she is not writing, she works as an English tutor and an oral storyteller.

Website(s)
Author Home Page Link
Link To Book On Amazon

Your Social Media Links
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5777618.JB_Rowley
https://www.facebook.com/BarnesRowley
https://twitter.com/jbrowley1

Twenty-five years ago they bought a homestead, in the middle of Vancouver Island, on the water’s edge. There are still reflections off the small lake at the foot of Mount Benson- of gardens and vineyards and woodland encounters.

Westwood Lake Chronicles is a dreamscape diary, a backyard inventory of life and death in paradise, and the desperate pressures that threaten its existence.

Lawrence Winkler has written an anthem to living deliberately with nature, and the virtues of simplicity, self-sufficiency, solitude, and silence. Find refuge.

Author Bio:
Lawrence Winkler is an ancient physician and phenomenologist, traveler, mushroom forager, and amateur naturalist. As a young man, he hitchhiked around the world, for five transformative years.
His middle age is morphing from medicine to manuscript. He has a passion for habitat protection, including the (hopefully) final repairs on a leaky roof. Westwood Lake Chronicles was his first book.
He lives on Vancouver Island with Robyn and Shiva, tending their garden and vineyard, and dreams.

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
My Backyard.

Website(s)
Author Home Page Link
Link To Book On Amazon
Link to Book on Barnes and Noble
Link to Book for sale via other sites

Social Media:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15804752-westwood-lake-chronicles

What inspired you to write your memoir?
There are thousands of people suffering abuse, whether it is from an individual or a group. Some get out, yet they are the walking wounded, not understanding what they went through or why. I took it upon myself to find how and why I got involved with this group, and what caused me to stay. I also found while working with people from other groups, that their story was similar to mine, although these groups had very different ideologies. Digging below the surface, it was apparent and quite startling how similar the mechanics of the manipulations of the individuals and the groups were. For the most part, people who exited such situation wanted to go back and lead “normal” lives, which were fine for them, but I was on another path, that led to this book. Wanting to share my experiences, I wanted ex-members to know that they were okay, and to let society know that there is a problem, and that this could happen to anyone. I do not know one person in the United States that was not somehow affected by the planes crashing into the towers of the World Trade Center. I was ready to take a bullet for the cause, and I know full well what a group of people can do when they turn to violence to further their cause.

About your Book:
This book is about my deprogramming from a religious cult, a little of my background, and events that happened during my time in the cult. I have formatted it starting with the deprogramming and the following chapter is some of my background. After this is the introduction to the group and my subsequent involvement. I do this in a year by year format, to keep a consistency through the book. I track how I became further and further committed to the cult and the problems that it caused with my family once they found what I was involved in. Not withstanding their concerns, I became more involved to the point that I was allowed to be security for the leadership, and would have given my life for theirs.
After the deprogramming I spent a period of time in a half-way house to begin to make sense of my experience. The last four chapters of the book deal with some of the larger ramifications of cults in society today.
In 2008 it was the 30 year anniversary of Jonestown. Extremism has deeply affected our society in other events such as the Oklahoma bombings, David Koresh, and the terrorist using planes to take out the twin towers in New York. As much as people would like to consider that this was done by a few disturbed maniacs that are disassociated from society, the truth is much more ominous. Anyone is capable of such acts and everyone is vulnerable of being manipulated.

This is a nonfiction book, and it is a platform for other books to come. This is my experience, and I believe this gives weight to my understanding of the cult experience as one who has been there, and has successfully come out the other side with the knowledge of what has happened and why.

As this was a religious cult, this has its market in spirituality and Christianity, though the process of manipulation can be from any type of human interaction, whether it is an abusive relationship, or other groups that are not of a necessarily spiritual nature. Therefore it is also part of sociology, psychology, and even linguistics.

Author Bio:
Rand Burkey was raised in a farming community outside a sleepy little town in Northeast Ohio. Rand grew up during a time that found America in the throws of tremendous change and social upheaval bringing people to question their allegiances, values, and beliefs.
Growing up in a typical Midwestern middleclass family, Rand saw all of this change from the insulation of a life that included faith, family, fun, and work. He was a leader in his church, and had faith in a God that he sought to understand, and had thoughts of going to school to be a minister. Rand was also a leader in school, being a member of the Key Club, a delegate to Buckeye Boys’ State, and a member of the National Honor Society.
After a series of events that disillusioned him from going into the ministry, he found a position in a business that gave him opportunity to advance into a manager training program, which required him to move from his home, family, and friends.
While in this training program, he became involved in The Way, which started an odyssey that would last almost six years, and culminated in his being kidnapped and deprogrammed by his parents. This led to a most unlikely career path for another eight years. The following is the first part that story.
Now a professional consultant/author with 25+ years of experience assisting individuals, families, groups, and audiences with understanding the dynamics of abuse and manipulation.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
Because of the explosion of the internet, this gives first-time authors the opportunity that are seldom found with traditional publishing. I knew full well that marketing, whether done by traditional publishing or not, was ultimately my responsibility. I was able to retain my copy writes as well as control of the other media writes. I chose Westbow Press because of its affiliation with Thomas Nelson Publishing, simply to make sure that my book was not lumped into other books or publishers I would want to associate.

Website(s)
Author Home Page Link
Link To Book On Amazon
Link to Book on Barnes and Noble
Link to Book for sale via other sites

What inspired you to write your memoir?
My fiance was wondering when I would get rid of my boxes of scrapbooks full of backstage passes, pictures with rockers, tickets, and much more rock memorabilia. Also, all my friends kept encouraging me to write my book. When one of the patrons at the restaurant where I am a waitress left me a large sum of money, I was finally able to purchase a laptop and begin writing my book.

About your Book:
Rock me all night long…
A decade of rock history…and a decade of rock fan adoration for one little chiquita from Omaha who spent star-studded nights with superstars of eighties rockdom: David Lee Roth with Van Halen, Billy Squier, Ozzy Osbourne’s Jake E. Lee, Paul Stanley of KISS, Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx, Bret Michaels and Poison, Vivian Campbell and Def Leppard, the J. Geils Band’s Peter Wolf, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and plenty more.
Rockin’ Rita and her sexy entourage were ultra-fans who rocked the boys in the bands backstage and between the covers when the heavy metal rockers and hair bands rolled into town in their tour buses. With her own outrageously high hair and edgy original clothing designs, Rita never missed an opportunity to get the coveted backstage passes that led to dressing room parties and hotel hook-ups.

This is a sex-and-tell story about her obsession for sex and drugs with rock stars. Rita reveals her flirtatious romps and hard rock tales with the bad boys of eighties heavy metal in her legend-filled story…Once Upon a Rock Star

Author Bio:
A friend wrote in Rita’s 1982 high school yearbook: “I hope that someday you will meet your true David Lee Roth … and become a rock and roll queen.”

After leaving Omaha and moving to LA, Rita continued her pursuit of heavy metal bands throughout the 1980s. She eventually traded rock stars for movie stars and did a stint as a stand-up comic at LA’s Improv, The Comedy Store, and the Rose Tattoo. She worked at the exclusive Tramps of London club where she met many more movie stars and the glitterati of Hollywood—who are in the stories for Rita’s next book continuing her adventures in California in the 1990s.

After leaving LA with more memories than any single person could ever experience, Rita returned to her hometown and turned over a new leaf. She is a hard-working mom who is active in her church (just in case a higher power is needed!).

Her extensive scrapbooks of backstage passes and personal photos document a lifestyle that rock fans only dream about.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
I published with an independent publisher, Arbor Oak Books, which is an imprint of Concierge Marketing.

Website(s)
Author Home Page Link
Link To Book On Amazon
Link to Book on Barnes and Noble

What inspired you to write your memoir?
In 2011, at age sixty-one, I took my first long walk, The Camino de Santiago. This 500-mile pilgrimage in northern Spain is a European Cultural Itinerary known as The Way or The Way of Saint James. As I walked, I talked with other female pilgrims (hikers). Their stories were amazing. My book is about my journey and the conversations I had with these incredible women.

About your Book:
Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino is a heartfelt and personal recounting of Jane
Blanchard’s 500- mile pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. Learn how she prepared for the trek, the daily rituals in long-distance walking, the camaraderie and conversations with women she met along the way, the personal changes, and the beauty and appeal of the most popular of all the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela, the Camino Francés.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
One day early on the Camino, I had a conversation with a French woman and realized that hers, like many other female pilgrims, was an amazing story that others might want to hear. That evening, I tried to write up the conversation and realized that my interpretation of her French and my impressions of what she said was clouding what she actually said. I then recorded the conversations and transcribed in my book.

As a new writer, I did not even consider traditional publishing. I first published the book on CreateSpace on June 25, 2011, and then on Amazon. It is now available on most online book outlets

How do you see writing a Memoir as different from writing other genres of books?
Memoir writers have to be gutsy when revealing personal stories and impressions of life’s incidents. Writers of other genres can mask their personal stories and commentaries on life through characters in the book; they do not need to be as daring in exposing themselves as is the memoir writer.

Author Bio:
I am an author, public speaker, and blogger. I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, lived in Hampstead, New Hampshire, twenty-three years before moving to Sarasota, Florida, where I now reside. In Florida, I became active in several organizations benefiting women and hosted a weekly radio talk show, Women Matters.

I love the outdoors. I climbed my first mountain, Mount Washington, in 1974. Since that initial ascent, I have climbed twenty of the forty 4,000-foot mountains in New England. I started mountain bike racing at age 50; in 2002, I won second place in the Masters Division EFTA (Eastern Fat Tire Association) Championship Series.

In September and October 2011 and at 60 years old, I took my first long walk–the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage across northern Spain. As I walked, I talked with women from different nations. The book, Women of the Way, weaves these conversations with my journey.

This is my first non-technical book, combining my skills as a technical writer with my passion for women and women matters.

When I married Dennis in 1974, we joked about creating a lifetime of memories to chat about when sitting in our rockers in old age. At 61 years old, we are still creating memories, experiencing life as fully as possible, and looking forward to a long future.

Website(s)
Author Home Page Link
Link To Book On Amazon
Link to Book on Barnes and Noble
Link to Book for sale via other sites

Your Social Media Links
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15732486-women-of-the-way
http://www.facebook.com/womenoftheway
https://twitter.com/JaneVBlanchard
http://pinterest.com/janevblanchard/