Memoir Book Place

What inspired you to write your memoir?
Even before my son Paul died, I started writing about him and his bipolar disorder. I kept a journal to get out the frustrations of dealing with his episodes and hospitalizations and erratic behavior. Then after his death by suicide as a result of his illness I wrote to ease my pain and record my memories about my son. When I finally I had enough journal entries, pieces from my writing classes and workshops, and poetry, I began to form a memoir about my family’s experience.

I felt, if my memoir inspires just one family in the same situation to survive, it would be a success.

About your Book:
Leaving the Hall Light On charts the almost-destruction of one middle-class family whose son committed suicide after a seven-year struggle with bipolar disorder.

Madeline Sharples, author, poet and web journalist, goes deep into her own well of grief to describe her anger, frustration and guilt. She describes many attempts – some successful, some not – to have her son committed to hospital and to keep him on his medication. The book also charts her and her family’s redemption, how she considered suicide herself, and ultimately, her decision to live and take care of herself as a woman, wife, mother and writer.

The author’s book shares several aspects of her son’s illness and how she and her husband, and their other son, Ben, survived Paul’s suicide, as it:
• Describes the frustration, anger, and guilt of trying to care for an adult child with mental illness
• Gives mothers and fathers who have experienced a child’s death ways to get out of the deep dark hole they are in
• Tells people the realities of mental illness
• Describes the steps Sharples took in living with this loss; the first and foremost that she chose to live and go on with life and take care of herself as a woman, wife, mother, writer
• Shows readers that grief is love in action. To let ourselves grieve is to feel the depth of our love for as long as it takes. For those of us whose children have died, that may take the rest of our lives, but we will discover the gifts of our loss in the process.

Author Bio:
Madeline Sharples studied journalism in high school and college and wrote for the high school newspaper, but only started to fulfill her dream to work as a creative writer and journalist late in life. Her memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mother’s Memoir of Living with Her Son’s Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide, was released in a hardback edition in 2011 and has just been released in paperback and eBook editions by Dream of Things. It tells the steps she took in living with the loss of her oldest son, first and foremost that she chose to live and take care of herself as a woman, wife, mother, and writer. She hopes that her story will inspire others to find ways to survive their own tragic experiences.

She also co-authored Blue-Collar Women: Trailblazing Women Take on Men-Only Jobs (New Horizon Press, 1994), co-edited the poetry anthology, The Great American Poetry Show, Volumes 1 and 2, and wrote the poems for two photography books, The Emerging Goddess and Intimacy (Paul Blieden, photographer). Her poems have also appeared online and in print magazines.

Madeline’s articles appear regularly in the Naturally Savvy, PsychAlive, and Open to Hope. She also posts at her blogs, Choices and at Red Room and is currently writing a novel. Madeline’s mission since the death of her son is to raise awareness, educate, and erase the stigma of mental illness and suicide in hopes of saving lives.

Madeline and her husband of forty plus years live in Manhattan Beach, California, a small beach community south of Los Angeles. Her younger son Ben lives in Santa Monica, California with his wife Marissa.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
My writing instructor encouraged me to get my story out to the public.

Originally Leaving the Hall Light On was published by Lucky Press LLC (May 2011) in a hardback edition. However, after Lucky Press went out of business in April 2012, I contracted with publisher Dream of Things (Downers Grove IL) publish the paperback and eBook editions. The paperback was released last month; the Kindle edition was released this week.

I had a wonderful mentor who worked with me throughout my query process who always encouraged me to obtain a “proper” publisher. And I am so glad I did. Lucky Press got my story out, and now the owner of Dream of Things has done things to and for my book that I could never have accomplished for myself: editing/proofreading, marketing ideas, posting details at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Plus he is arranging readings and radio shows for me during an upcoming trip to Chicago in September.

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

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What inspired you to write your memoir?
I am the writer of a self-published adventure travel memoir, “Letters to Zerky, a Father’s Legacy to a Lost Son and a Road Trip Around the World.” I
am currently working on a different kind of memoir, “In Search of a Lost Penny.” The former is an adventure travel book while the latter will be a
more personal book about my little sister who disappeared one night when I was six years old. No one would ever tell me what happened to her. About
fifty years later, I set out on a mission to discover whether she was simply a lonely little boys illusion or whether she was real. Eventually
it turned out that she was indeed real, but had been taken away from our mother in secret and put up for adoption. We finally met each other at her
house in Colorado during Christmas of 1985.

About your Book:
Originally when most of it was written, “Letters to Zerky” was not intended to be a book but rather a series of letters to a son who had been too young to remember his great adventure. In 1967 the co-authors Bill and JoAnne Raney took off on a lark, trying to drive a VW bus around the world with their one-year-old-son Zerky and their dog Tarzan. On this trip, Bill wrote a large number of letters while JoAnne kept her diary. Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim, Assam, culminating in an unsuccessful attempt to drive the legendary Burma Road into China. Much later in 1990, Bill turned these letters into a timely and multiple prizewinning adventure travel book which has garnered rave reviews and a ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year award.

Author Bio:
Born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1935, Bill Raney grew up in trouble. At age 14, after his family fell apart, he spent a year in an institution, before ending up in Port Angeles, Washington, where he became a ham radio operator. There he started becoming a traveler by cruising all over world on the airwaves. He especially enjoyed making radio contact with ham radio operators in the South Pacific Ocean in places such as Australia, New Zealand, the Philippine Islands, Guam and—Bill’s favorite—Yap!

Upon graduating from high school in 1954, Bill received a scholarship to go to Reed College, a well-known liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon. In 1956 he transferred to the University of California at Berkley, where he was soon exposed to the bright lights of San Francisco, where he become a beatnik in North Beach from 1957 to 1967. There he met JoAnne Walker, who soon became Mrs. JoAnne Walker Raney and the co-author of Letters to Zerky. Together they adopted Zerky when he was six weeks old and set off on their road trip around the world.

Returning to San Francisco thirteen months later, the Raneys moved down the coast to Santa Cruz, California, where Bill founded the Nickelodeon Theatre, which is still going strong today. In 1971 Bill remarried, this time to his current wife Nancy. Together they bought a 42’ trawler which they lived on for ten years while slowly cruising up and down the Pacific Coast between Central California and Alaska, twice. Bill is now busy working on his second book, “In Search of a Lost Penny.”

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
I decided to self-publish “Letters to Zerky” (http://www.WaltzingAroundTheWorld.com)

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?
I thought that a sub culture like the outlaw biker world, that is a part of history, might be of interest to someone who would like to know the thoughts of someone who had lived it for over 50 years as he experienced it day to day. Not just a documentary, like most memoirs of this kind.This one is the first of a three part series.After all, 50 years is a long time, especially the way we lived it.

About your Book:
I am pleased with my book. I am told by others who lived the life that they were also. What more could an author want.

Author Bio:
71 years old, still riding. White male. Lived it and done it.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
I have a friend, Sharon Smith, who writes an online column Examiner,com about the bikers scene in the Dallas, Tx. area. I sent her a couple of old school biker stories. She had a great response from her readers and suggested i put it in a book. I had written a rough draft already with this in mind but, that got me on the road to actually doing it. Sharon is also my editor. I used a company named “One Book At A Time” to print the book. I decided to self publish as many good books were turned down that went on to be classics. Besides if I ever talk to an agent or whoever, i have a finished book to show them.

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

What inspired you to write your memoir?
I lived a life recklessly — fast cars, drinking, drugs, sex — and it was suggested to me often that I should ‘tell my story.’ However, what people didn’t know, was my ‘reason’ for doing the things I did, which was to ‘hide’ who/what I am — a transgender individual born in 1961 in Kentucky, a time and place unaware of what it meant to be transgender.

It was not until I was able to face myself and ‘come out’ that I was able to put my story — my memories — down on paper. It was my wife’s skills as an administrative assistant that turned my memories into a memoir.

About your Book:
Alana Nicole Sholar shares her personal struggle with gender confusion in “Hung in the Middle: A Journey of Gender Discovery.” Born as Alan, Sholar lived, worked, and even trained to become a jockey on several of Kentucky’s now famous thoroughbred farms.

One of Alana’s earliest childhood memories is trying on her mother’s clothes and discovering that it just seemed right. However, in that place – rural central Kentucky – and at that time – the 1960’s – this was unheard of — let alone admitted.

Determined to hide the struggle within, Alan is a fast driving, hard drinking, pill popping, guitar player with a sex addiction that leads to multiple partner encounters and the consequences. On the way to becoming Alana, she imagines what it must be like to be with a man. When the opportunity presents itself, she struggles with making a decision to do something that once done, could never be undone.

In the end, Hung in the Middle is a love story. It is one of those familiar – but always irresistible – stories about falling in love with someone inaccessible, yet never giving up. And, it is about learning to love yourself.

Author Bio:
Alana Nicole Sholar was born as Alan Sholar in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1961. Alan’s first love was the love for horses, which is why, even at the young age of eight years old, he was so excited when his family moved onto a thoroughbred farm in Versailles, Kentucky. Being of small stature along with his love for horses and living on a thoroughbred farm were all factors in Alan deciding to train to become a jockey.

As a young adult, Alan’s life was filled with risky macho behavior – an attempt to hide the struggle within. He married at the age of 25. He has one son. He had been married for 13 years before he was able to share his hidden secret with his wife. In 2005 Sholar’s name was legally changed to Alana Nicole. In 2006 the couple separated and divorced.

Although Alana is taking steps to transition, currently she continues to live her life ‘hung in the middle’ of genders.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
Coincidence? I don’t think they exist.

I accompanied my wife to meet with a gentleman she does administrative assistant work for. He happened to have a friend accompany him to the meeting. I mentioned working on my book, his friend mentioned he was starting a business to help authors self-publish — and the rest is history.

Since that date EWH Press was born — as well as “Hung in the Middle.”

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