Memoir Book Place

What inspired you to write your memoir?
For years people told me to write a book about my dating experiences, so I did. As a journalist, I had experience in writing about other people’s lives and I was eager to apply my skills to my own situation. I had made several attempts to write novels, but they never got off the ground. My book, a memoir of connected chapters, fulfilled my ambitions and takes my writing career to a new level.

About your Book:
A Kosher Dating Odyssey: One Former Texas Baptist’s Quest for a Naughty & Nice Jewish Girl tracks the progress of the author’s jolting changes in belief as he enters the world of dating pre- and post-Internet. Van Wallach is the product of a small-town Texas upbringing, a Princeton education and years of New York City and posh Connecticut living. The stories of his pursuit of romance—from Brooklyn to Brazil and beyond—provide a wry, revealing, and distinctly male perspective on Jewish online dating.

Raised a Southern Baptist, Wallach found himself drawn to his family’s Jewish heritage and the women who embodied it. To meet the special challenges of online dating, he took a marketer’s approach to packaging his unique background into a memorable screen name and profile. His book explores the highs and heartbreaks of dating the “smart, vulnerable and shtetl-lovely” Jewish women he met and adored after he left Texas. As he follows his muse far afield, he analyzes Jewish body image (his and hers), calculates ROEI (Return on Emotional Investment), identifies the sexiest Jewish movies (hint: his three favorites all have subtitles), engages in edgy encounters with “the competition” in the quest for a fair maidele’s hand, and contemplates the role of Jewish faith in times of difficulties. Part memoir, part how-to, and partly just off-the-wall, A Kosher Dating Odyssey will appeal to anyone who is interested in journeys of both the spirit and the flesh.

Author Bio:
Van Wallach is a writer in Westport, Connecticut. A native of Mission, Texas, he holds an economics degree from Princeton University. His work as a journalist has appeared in Advertising Age, the New York Post, Venture, The Journal of Commerce, Newsday, Video Store, the Hollywood Reporter, and the Forward. Van has been a regular contributor to the Princeton Alumni Weekly since 1993 and is the webmaster for the Princeton Class of 1980. He contributed a chapter on home-video economics to the second edition of The Movie Business Book. A language buff, Van has studied Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew, although he can’t speak any of them.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
I posted a notice on a Princeton University discussion group about writing, asking for idea on publishers and agents. Somebody suggested Coffeetown Press in Seattle. I approach Coffeetown and after an initial conversation submitted an outline, which drew on materials I had already published online. The publisher liked it and I soon had a contract. The relationship and support during the project have been excellent. I wanted to work with a publisher and editor, rather than self-publish so I could get that support and ideas on how to market the book.

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 should have died from a scooter accident in Mexico from a massive head injury in January of 2007. Resulting in 7 steel plates and 34 screws surgically placed in my face. Because of my healing and mental skills as well as my spiritual connections I never lost consciousness, nor did I experience any pain; not even a headache. I have very little scaring and no head injury symptoms to speak of. The magical way everything lined up, it was shown to me that it was a planned event for several important reasons. Sharing my story has entertained and helped many of my readers contemplate their own circumstances and choices and how we choose to think about our current path can make a situation better or much worse.

About your Book:
Winner of the “2011 Readers favorite Award.” “It’s Not Weird Anymore: An Extraordinary True Tale” is an eclectic soup of a love story, Match dot com, relationship, sacred sex, natural healing methods, essential oils, sound health advice, personal growth, metaphysical magick, archetypes, art, belly dancing, feng shui, spirit, wisdom, politics, and conspiracy spun together as an entertaining self-help teaching tool. www.ItsNotWeirdAnymore.com

Author Bio:
Laura Legere grew up in Virginia, left home at 18 and moved straight to the west coast where she still resides. She explored several interesting occupations, commercial fishing in Alaska, a deckhand on a cruise ship as well as tugboats. She traveled by sailboat from Hawaii to Samoa and back to Alaska before becoming a high voltage cable-splicer for a power company. Laura has led an adventurous life as you will read in her extraordinary true tale. Currently Laura’s focus of service and purpose is assisting people with healthy living, personal growth and spiritual exploration through her private practice as a massage therapist and teacher of natural healing in essential oils. She has always been a gifted networker as well as a great storyteller and loves to point people in a purposeful positive direction.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
After researching and contemplating which way to go during my writing process. Self publishing was much faster, less expensive and I stayed in control of the content and my right to my work. I had friends read it for honest feedback and I had it professionally edited before I submitted it to a self publisher. It is up to me to promote my work whether I go with a big publisher or not. I chose “OutSkirts Press” because they offered lots of marketing help, tips, etc after my book was published. I felt that they’re print books were very professional looking and I had a personal coach to talk with during the formatting, spelling and editing process.

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?
I was on the Baltimore water taxi when it overturned in the Inner Harbor in March 2004. I lost my wife and daughter that day. To survive this loss I found myself telling people about all the strange yet wonderful things that were happening in my life. I expected that they would want to put me in a straight jacket. Instead they all told me to write them down so I would not forget them. I wrote them so I could share them with my granddaughters when they are older. I was not trying to write a book but I allowed it to become a book when I realized it was helping others. Most people refer to my book as being about the Power of Love. It received the Next Generation Indie Book Award for the Best Inspirational book.
The book is my attempt to stress the following points to help others who have experienced a tragedy.

a. Positive thoughts are the most powerful force we posses.
b. With love all things are possible.
c. Love never Dies. Our loved ones that have passed remain close to us forever.
d. Opening yourself up to signs from lost loved ones will provide you with ways to go on with a happy and successful life.
e. Tears are just our bodies way to allow us to cope with things that would otherwise be beyond our comprehension. We just have to let them be tears of joy, not sorrow; tears of laughter, not pain; tears of love, not grief.
f. All the kindness a person puts out into the world works on the hearts and thoughts of mankind.

My Mission is to help others who have experienced the loss of a loved one. When I open my email I never know if I am going to end up sharing some tears with someone I have never met. The last page of my book contains my email address and many people who have read my book after a tragic or sudden loss have written me to tell me how much my book helped them. These emails made the book the most rewarding accomplishment of my entire life. They are my inspiration to get the book into the hands of others that it will help.

About your Book:
My book, The Last Rose: A True Celebration of Eternal Life, is about the first year of my life after the accident. Immediately after the five minute storm that cause the accident a beautiful double rainbow appeared over the rescue boats. It was the first of five rainbows I talk about in the book that all appeared on very significant occasions. Another chapter talks about the many times that the number 13 appeared to me that first year. It has been six years since the accident and the number 13 continues to appear to me all the time. I have been a computer programmer and consultant all my life, and logic has always played a big part in the way that I think. I believe that these events and others I outlined in the book truly defy logic. At least logic as we observe it on our human plane. The only logical explanation for all of these things is that there really is a spiritual plane of existence that is totally outside our realm of comprehension. Chapter 10 talks about my first session with a Medium. I was not convinced that Mediums had a real gift, but two hours with this man were totally life changing.

My book is not about the accident. It is about the power of love. Once you read my version of that day in chapter two, and the letter written the day after the accident by one of the reservists that rescued my daughter Lisa, you will feel like you were right there with us.

Author Bio:
Thomas E. Pierce married the love of his life, Jo Ann, on August 13th 1966. The two enjoyed a happy marriage for more than 37 years and raised two beautiful daughters, Lisa and Kathy. Even after their daughter’s left their home in Vineland, NJ to start their own careers, Thomas and Jo Ann seized every opportunity to spend time with the girls. It was during on of these visits in March of 2004, that the Pierce family was changed forever.

On March 5, 2004, Thomas and Jo Ann drove to Baltimore, MD for a weekend gateway with their oldest daughter, Lisa. The next morning, the family decided to take a boat tour of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, and boarded the water taxi, Lady D to take in the sights. In what would become one of the worst accidents in Baltimore’s history, the water taxi capsized, throwing all 25 passengers into the frigid water.

Thomas Pierce was left clinging to the overturned boat awaiting rescue, but tragically, Jo Ann and Lisa were among the five lives claimed that day.

In the many months that followed, Thomas struggled to piece together his fife without Jo Ann and Lisa. He began writing stories and giving speeches about them, and slowly, Thomas began to heal. With the encouragement of friends and family, he wrote a book, The Last Rose: A True Celebration of Eternal Life, in which he discusses the accident, the aftermath and the loving legacies of his wife and daughter.

Thomas E. Pierce was born in Philadelphia, PA where he lived until he graduated from LaSalle College in 1966 with a degree in accounting. A computer programmer and consultant for most of his life, Thomas has become a professional speaker and writer since the accident. He has shared his compelling story to numerous audiences, including a fundraiser for the Red Cross, memorial services for the accident victims, a dedication ceremony at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and at the Day of Remembrance at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.

Pierce currently resides in Vineland, NJ, near his surviving daughter and his two granddaughters.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
I originally had 500 copies printed at a local printing company. I had to do that three times to keep up with the local demand for the book.
Then I sell published the hardcover book through BookPros of Austin, Texas. They have since declared bankruptcy but the book is still available on Amazon. It is also available as a Kindle and a Nook book.

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 wanted to give us a personal and critical history of the counterculture, from beatnik San Francisco and New York, to hippie Paris and London, to Fluxus, to the feminist and fashion revolutions of the 1960’s and the aftermath of it all. To show how the mixing of the pop world – the fashion world , the artistic and cultural world helped people change the world we lived in

About your Book:
Besides being involved in most of the activities that created the world charging times of the 1960’s I established the first textile design studio in London, winning awards and worldwide success. My book covers in depth information about fashion influences, textile design, fashion forecasting and the world’s most important designers and how that industry functions. Trend Union, her fashion consulting firm which she set up in Paris in 1985 broke the fashion barriers and was named bu Time Magazine as the world’s Most Influential futurists in fashion.

Author Bio:
II was born in the mountains of Canada. In my third year of art school in Calgary Canada, inspired by Kerouac’s book, On the Road, I hitchhiked to San Francisco. I got to know the San Francisco’s writers, Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso, and later in Paris, the avant-garde artists John Cage, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Robert Filliou, Daniel Spoerri, Max Neuhaus and various members of the art movement Fluxus. In London i partied and protested with the people who created Swinging London as well as artists, pop stars, Pink Floyd, Yoko Ono, The Beatles and Rolling Stones, just to mention a few. During the sixties, I opened my hippie boutique—Twiggy modeled my clothes—and became one of the Carnaby Street and King’s Road designers that helped change the way the world dressed.
My memoir is a personal and critical history of the artist’s counterculture, from beatnik San Francisco and New York, to hippie Paris and London, to feminist and fashion revolutions and the aftermath of it all. My memoir is not just about my incredib le success in th fashion world it is also about the most important moments in the 60’s, including the barricades in Paris.

How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
i TRIED QUITE A FEW AGENTS AND PUBLISHERS WITHOUT SUCCESS Technicolor Dreamin’ was first published it in Canada with Trafford ISBN141208018 and then taken and pushed by SterlingHouse Publisher ISBN1-58501-117-7 in US retitled In Her Own Fashion

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?
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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