Play & Book Excerpts
Find exclusive excerpts from books written by bestselling and first-time authors as well as experts in particular fields of interest. Excerpts from community plays are also available here. Thanks to all who shared their work. Click on image to view excerpt.
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NEW! Excerpt from The Broken Hummingbird (She Writes Press) by Ann Marie Jackson. This book wrestles with marital dissolution and cultural dissonance, following one woman's struggle to truly know her new country and her own heart. This story appeals to readers enthralled by the fate of innocents and not-so-innocents and also includes a propelling dose of the energy, edgy sisterhood, and dark domestic secrets. It was a finalist in the "Women's Fiction" category of the 2023 International Book Awards and a finalist in the 2023 American Fiction Awards for the categories "Women's Fiction" and "Best New Fiction."
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NEW! Excerpt from I Decide: The Happy Little Guide to Living Your Best Life (Game Changer Publishing) by Erin Lopez and Lisa Cox. This guide helps you discover the knowledge, power, tools and resources you need to make changes necessary to improve your life. Readers will learn to stop using the escape hatch and to be their own parachute. This guide will help you reshape the way you think and give you the tools and strategies you need to change your life today.
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Excerpt from The Return Trip: A Memoir (Rising Action Publishing and Blackstone Publishing) by Maya Golden. At age thirty, Maya Golden was living a charmed life. She was an award-winning sports reporter, a loyal wife, and a new mom. Privately, she was battling addiction, perfectionism, dissociation disorders, and rage due to sexual abuse endured at the hands of her cousin and many other predators. From a suicide plan to the treatment facility to launching a nonprofit organization -- Maya's story chronicles and dissects her journey to find purpose out of the trauma.
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Excerpt from Rough Waters: From Surviving to Thriving with a Progressive Muscular Dystrophy (Making Waves for Good Publishing) by Heather C. Markham. At age thirty-four, Heather received a life-changing diagnosis: she had a progressive muscular dystrophy and would eventually need a wheelchair. With humor and heartbreaking candor, this memoir chronicles Heather’s slow decline in mobility and her determination to live an extraordinary life—one full of laughter and joy, sand and salt water. This book is both an inspiring memoir and a courageous call for more empathy from medical professionals, care attendants, and anyone who knows and loves someone with a disability.
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Excerpt from Light in Bandaged Places: Healing in the Wake of Young Betrayal (She Writes Press) by Liz Kinchen. As a lonely girl coming of age in the 1970s, Liz has every reason to believe her 8th-grade teacher is in love with her. Years later, as she begins to understand how her relationship with her former teacher destroyed her innocence and self-worth, she begins a spiritual and psychological journey that sets her free. As a meditation teacher and Buddhist practitioner, Liz offers her story in hope of helping others along their own paths of discovery and healing.
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Excerpt from The Baba Yaga Mask (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing) by Kris Spisak. When their Ukrainian grandmother is lost on a trans-Atlantic Flight, two sisters are swept into a quest across eastern Europe to find the woman who had always told more tales than truths. From Poland to Slovakia to Hungary and beyond, Larissa and Ira navigate the steps of Ukrainian folk dance, the cliff-side paths of Slovak Paradise National Park, and the stark realities of war, folktales, and feminism, all for the sake of chasing who they're starting to believe is a true Baba Yaga. Understanding their family's roots has never been more clear.
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Excerpt from Sunrise: Life After Traumatic Brain Injury (Archway Publishing) by Kristin Abello. In 2002, while on a training run in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Raul, in preparation for the Marine Corps Marathon, Kristin was struck by a car. As a result, she sustained a traumatic brain injury and other physical traumas. The initial consensus was that she wasn’t going to survive. In this book, she tells her story of faith, love, hope and healing from TBI. While a love story, it is also the true story of her fight for survival. This story tells how the support and prayers of her husband, family, and friends formed the basis of her miraculous recovery.
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Excerpt from Watching for Dragonflies: A Caregiver's Journey (She Writes Press) by Suzanne Marriott. There are 53 million family caregivers in the United States, and many feel isolated and overwhelmed. Suzanne's memoir reaches out to other caregivers and anyone who has experienced a life-changing crisis, inviting them to explore the many avenues of growth and transformation that uninvited change can bring. Suzanne’s story begins with a phone call from her husband, Michael, telling her he has collapsed on the job. They soon learn he has multiple sclerosis. Often poignant, at times funny, and always riveting, Watching for Dragonflies will bring comfort—and inspiration—to readers as they navigate their own transformative journey.
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Excerpt from False Memories (Self Published) by Lynn Crook. In 1991, Lynn sued her parents for damages after recovering memories of childhood sexual abuse by her father. Following a month-long trial in 1994, the judge ruled in her favor at a time when 85% of the popular press was telling us that adults’ accusations of childhood sexual abuse are false memories. This is the story of Crook's case against her parents, her investigation into the "false memories" narrative, and her exposure of the organized publicity campaign that upended countless lives through gaslighting and manipulation. Find a Q&A with Lynn.
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Excerpt from From Stuck to Unstoppable (Amplify Publishing) by Trish Hunt. Calling upon common-sense childhood lessons imparted by her no-nonsense single mother, she went from working out of a broom closet to leading a division of an S&P 500 company. Drawing from nearly three decades of her own operational and leadership experience, Trish reveals powerful life and leadership lessons about resilience, grit, and the indomitable strength of the human spirit. Whether you’re an executive, an entrepreneur, or someone trying to live with greater care and purpose, this book is for you.
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Excerpt from Everyday Awakening (Amplify Publishing) by Catherine Duncan. This book integrates the best of spirituality, neuroscience, psychology, and therapy so you can change how you embrace every day, every moment, and every choice. Drawing from decades of her personal and professional experience in healthcare, spiritual care, and complementary healing, Catherine offers a wealth of options - including breathwork, meditations, grounding rituals, and other exercises - for bringing each of the five practices into your daily life.
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Excerpt from Abundant Soul-utions (Amplify Publishing) by Chris Atley. A "mompreneur" is a woman juggling motherhood and running a business. Chris advises that when we finally give ourselves permission to take care of our own selves first, it has a profound ripple effect on our families, friends, and finances. Besides being an author, Chris is an NLP master coach, who has helped thousands of female entrepreneurs tap into their own inner resources to create the businesses and lives they have always imagined.
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Excerpt from I Got it From Here (She Writes Press) by Francesca Miracola. Francesca's memoir is a story of saving herself and her children from the grips of a sociopath posing as a family man – and from the inherited trauma passed down by her own family of birth – while learning to trust in the inner voice that’s been trying to guide her all along. This is a rocky, emotional journey that ultimately leads her to question the unhealthy dynamics in her family of origin that attracted her to such a man in the first place. It is also a story of strength and resilience.
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Excerpt from the short play Penelope's Perils by Roberta Curley. This satirical play tells the story of a couple stuck in an unhappy marriage. The impending death of a wealthy aunt is the subject of their angsty banter. While news of infidelity and long-term disgust with one another surfaces, the play comes to a swift (and perilous) conclusion, leaving the reader to believe Penelope's plans for a future on a beautiful Tahitian just might happen after all. Roberta is a poet and lifelong resident of New York City.
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Excerpt from She Danced with Lightning (Post Hill Press) by Marc Palmieri. Part family memoir, part medical mystery involving severe epilepsy, this story follows Marc's daughter's battle to persevere as a competitive dancer, culminating in a terrifying decline, a courageous performance, and an eleventh hour, life-saving brain surgery. Marc's plays have been produced across the country and internationally, including The New York Times’ “Critic’s Pick” Levittown as well as The Groundling, Carl the Second, and Waiting for the Host. He wrote the screenplay for Miramax Films’ Telling You. Find an interview with Marc.
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Excerpt from Be Brave. Lose the Beige! Finding Your Sass After Sixty (She Writes Press) by Liz Kitchens. This book started as a blog and morphed into a movement, which gently pokes fun at ageist rules and expectations. It says “yes” when the rest of the world keeps saying “no.” Liz chronicles how creative thinking helped her cope with empty nest syndrome, navigate sex over sixty, and so much more. Liz is the founder of What’s Next Boomer?, a website dedicated to helping boomers navigate retirement options, and of the blog, Be Brave. Lose the Beige.
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Excerpt from Three Legs in the Evening (Roundfire Books) by Bette Ann Moskowitz. Bette's protagonist, Sally, is caught in a place where everything she thought she knew is changing. This is a story about running out of steam, running out of time, and finding solace and wisdom even in the finality of all that. A life carefully built can crumble in a moment, but what happens then? Sally B. plays it out as best she can. Bette is a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for Creative Non-Fiction winner. Find her blog, Vinegar Mother.
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Excerpt from Not Weakness: Navigating the Culture of Chronic Pain (She Writes Press) by Francesca Grossman. After thyroid cancer, Crohn’s disease, and a slew of other autoimmune conditions ransacked her body in her twenties and thirties, Francesca was left feeling completely alone in her chronic pain. Her pain affected her whole life; yet it was also fairly invisible, and Francesca felt entirely alone. Imbued with a deep respect for the women who tell their stories in its pages, as well as a healthy skepticism of the healthcare world and how it can silence, shame, and ignore women in pain, this book is galvanizing memoir about living and loving with chronic pain.
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Excerpt from Insubordinate: 12 New Archetypes for Women Who Lead (Amplify Publishing) by Jocelyn Davis. An international leadership expert, Jocelyn Davis presents twelve timeless female archetypes reimagined and refreshed with stories of literary and everyday women who fought, cajoled, commanded, schemed, or blasted their way free of the chains that bound them. Discover your personal types, along with inspiration and strategies for expanding your range, tapping your inner power, and unleashing your natural leadership in work and life.
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Excerpt from The Beautiful Misfits (Regal House Publishing) by North Carolina-based, bestselling author Susan Reinhardt. This heart-wrenching and, at times, humorous novel will inspire and give hope to those with addicted sons and daughters. Susan's debut novel, Chimes From a Cracked Southern Belle, won Best Regional Fiction in the Independent Publishers Book Awards international contest, and was a No. 1 Amazon bestseller. This second novel, The Beautiful Misfits, releases from Regal House in March 2023.
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Excerpt from: Black Women in Business: Journeys in Resilience (Deborah Cole Connections) by Rose Smith and Deborah Cole. This book introduces the world to a group of powerful women who have overcome extensive odds to establish and grow their businesses. Often when women are asked how they excel, they are able to share humble stories of courage, determination, and commitment. By learning that others have "gone before" we know that it is possible to achieve our dreams through dedication, tenacity and resilience.
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Excerpt from: Choosing Survival (Flying Feet Publishing) by Lynn Forney. This is a story of survival where the author honestly and courageously shares her journey of recovery from extreme trauma, hoping she might help others do the same. Lynn loved to dance and perform as a child. Years later, she would attend a performing arts high school, and she received a BFA with highest honors from the University of Florida. She has performed and choreographed for various dance companies throughout the South and began taking acting classes which led to appearances in TV shows and films. She also has a passion for healing through the arts.
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Excerpt from: Every Missing Girl (Crooked Lane Books) by Leanne Kale Sparks. In this thrilling story, Leanne weaves the threads of a harrowing drama and builds the intensity to a fever pitch. The backdrop of this story, Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, is the playground of her youth and the place which will always be home. This is the second book in Leanne's crime thriller trilogy. First in the series, The Wrong Woman, was published in February 2022. Leanne's former career in criminal law helps to bring this story alive with realistic detail.
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Book Excerpts: 2022
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Excerpt from: From People Pleaser to Soul Pleaser (Potential Realized) by Tracy Secombe. Tracy has helped thousands of people pleasers to become Soul Pleasers® after experiencing chronic burnout from chasing recognition her entire life. By following her six simply explained steps, you will remember your true essence of joy and be who you want to be so you can relish in wonderful relationships, health, abundance, and fulfillment. In Sanctuary's Smart Steps section, Tracy tackles the topic "Please Your Soul to Realize Your Potential."
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Excerpt from: Closing the Confidence Gap (Amplify Publishing) by Kelli Thompson. This book will show you how to advance with confidence despite the systemic issues that women face every day. You’ll hear profoundly personal stories and walk away with practical tools to show you how to claim your role as a confident leader. Kelli has coached and trained hundreds of women to trust themselves, lead with more confidence, and create a career they love. She is the founder of the Clarity & Confidence Women’s Leadership Program, and a Stevie Award® winner for Women in Business – Coach of the Year.
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Excerpt from: The Path of Drawing (Monacelli Press) by Patricia Watwood. This book guides readers to cultivate a creative habit, learn skills in realistic drawing, and develop confidence in one’s individual voice. Focusing on aspects of mindfulness that are particularly relevant to creative individuals, Patricia discusses overcoming blocks and dealing with emotional challenges to accomplishing work. She shares her process for building a personal sourcebook of inspiration, and illustrates how artists use drawing as a vehicle for exploring ideas. Patricia's feature in SANCTUARY.
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Excerpt from: Dear Radiant One (GracePoint Publishing) by Phoebe Leona. This book shares vulnerable and honest interactions with emotion through letters that give you direct access to your own internal landscape. Phoebe provides specific practices that are an open invitation to explore your own vulnerability and the honest experiences of your emotional body. Author Phoebe Leona is a dancer, speaker, author, yoga teacher, and transformational guide who helps us feel more embodied through somatic, movement, and expanded awareness practices to become more empowered.
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Excerpt from: BAM...And Then It Hit Me (powerHouse Books) by Karen Brooks Hopkins. This is an inspiring memoir of her 36 years at Brooklyn Academy of Music, an iconic cultural institution and America's oldest performing arts center. The book has a sharp focus on concepts such as leadership, innovation, urban revitalization (including the transformation of Brooklyn from Manhattan Outpost to the coolest neighborhood on the planet), as highly successful cultural fundraising played critical roles in the colorful evolution of this world-class cultural juggernaut in the performing arts. Find a Q&A with Karen.
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Excerpt from: Seeing Eye Girl: A Memoir of Madness, Resilience, and Hope (She Writes Press) by Beverly J. Armento. In this emotional memoir, Beverly shares the coping strategies she invented to get herself through the trials of her young life, and the ways in which school and church served as refuges over the course of her journey. Breaking the psychological chains that bound her to her mother would prove to be the most difficult challenge of her life – and, ultimately, the most liberating one. This book was inspired by the many teachers who mentored her.
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Excerpt from: Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis: Women Writers Respond to the Call (She Writes Press) by Stephanie Raffelock and Foreword by Brook Warner. In response to the multitude of global crises we’re currently experiencing, the authors of She Writes Press answered Stephanie's call to uplift. This sometimes comforting, sometimes devastating, but universally relatable collection of prose, poetry, and art about living through difficult times like these is the result. Topics include grief and loss, COVID-19 and war in Ukraine.
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Excerpt from: SHE (Believed She Could So She Did) (Positively Powered Publications) by Deborah Cole. Deborah's book introduces 35 women in Texas who have by design or by circumstance come to create and/or lead companies. These women, from diverse ethnic and educational backgrounds all started with a dream or an idea. With the innate talents and determination to succeed, they have grown businesses of all sizes. Their collective advice uncovered, "If I can do this, any woman can."
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Excerpt from: The Understory: A Female Environmentalist in the Land of the Midnight Sun (Be Free Be Wild Press) by M. E. Schuman. Passion and peril are intertwined in this true tale of the author's drive to make the natural world a better place; she found her greatest hindrance not in physical challenges but in human adversaries. Michelle Schuman is a Certified Senior Ecologist and Professional Certified Wetland Scientist. She has signed an option agreement with HTWIP Productions for a screenplay.
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Excerpt from: Magician of Light (She Writes Press) by J. Fremont. This story illuminates the dark side of jewelry designer René Lalique’s life while spinning a suspenseful tale of twisting fates. An enthralling love story filled with historical intrigue and overshadowed by the unknowable. "Magician of Light is a memorable story of historical intrigue, jeweler René Lalique, and the relationships that inspired his art. This is a compelling, engaging tale of historical intrigue, and Fremont’s characters are immersive." (Booklife Reviews by Publisher's Weekly)
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Excerpt from: Fern I Coppedge: One Woman's Struggle for Equality in the Art World (West Highland Publishing, LLC) by Les and Sue Fox. In 1990, the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania celebrated Fern Coppedge's work with an exhibition titled "A Forgotten Woman." Accompanied by a 48-page catalogue, which included beautiful images and a summary of Coppedge's life, this exhibition left Les and Sue wishing someone would reveal much more about the extraordinary life of this turn-of-the-century woman (1883-1951). So, they decided to take up the challenge.
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Excerpt from: Crazy to Leave You (Lake Union Publishing) by award-winning author Marilyn Simon Rothstein. Forty-one years old, the last of her friends to marry, and down to a size 12, Lauren Leo is in her gown and about to tie the knot. There’s just one thing missing: the groom. What lies ahead is the road to self-acceptance and at long last feeling worthy. With a new way to measure love and success, Lauren chucks her scale – and finds a second chance in the most unexpected place.
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Excerpt from: Smart Woman's Guide: The Money Belief Formula (Herfinance Club) by Susan Diamond. Susan explains that millions of women are held back by internal money blocks that prevent them from achieving their full financial potential. This book will help you identify and release those blocks so you can move forward with confidence and clarity, and finally, achieve the level of financial empowerment you desire. You will gain a clear understanding of how your unique money story has been impacting your relationship with money - for better or worse.
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Excerpt from: Date Smart (Familius LLC) by Carla Marie Manly, Ph.D. Sometimes we have HUGE expectations for the ideal relationship, but dating isn’t about being perfect or catching the perfect partner; it’s all about creating compassionate self-awareness and stronger self-esteem. Self-discovery is key to healthy relationships. Carla explains that your life will change when you discover how to date strong, date fearlessly, and date smart. Carla also contributes her expertise publicly as a speaker and through top-notch media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, NBC, The New York Times, and many others.
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Excerpt from: Senior Sociopaths (Anderly Publishing) by Donna Andersen, author of Lovefraud.com. This is the first book to examine antisocial behavior in the over-50 crowd. This is a far bigger problem than anyone realizes. In America, 14 million people over age 50 could be diagnosed with antisocial, narcissistic, borderline or histrionic personality disorders, or psychopathy. They live among us, scamming and abusing almost everyone in their lives. Senior Sociopaths is based on surveys of nearly 2,400 people who lived through the damage inflicted by these disordered people over age 50.
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Excerpt from: Neglect (Arcade Publishing) by bestselling author Kim Wozencraft. This is a the story of a young mother at war on two fronts: first as a soldier in Afghanistan and then upon her return to rural Granite County, New York, where one terrible mistake threatens her family and her sanity. After a nearly fatal night of despair, she is swept up into a vast and indifferent bureaucracy that threatens to take her children from her – forever. Neglect is a profound story of mother love. Kim is also the author of the international bestseller Rush, adapted into a film starring Jennifer Jason Leigh.
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Excerpt from: Feeling Fate (She Writes Press) by Joni Sensel. This grief memoir has a paranormal twist, which explores how a dark intuition magnified Joni’s love and gratitude in the time she and Tony had together before her premonition came true. Faced with evidence of a grand design alongside her grief, she’s torn between faith and skepticism. While she’s nearly undone by the pain of her loss, she eventually discovers that a sassy imagination and the irrational insights of the heart can both defeat despair and transform her grief into meaning.
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Excerpt from: America Calling: A Foreign Student in a Country of Possibility (She Writes Press) by Rajika Bhandari. This memoir is both a deeply personal story of Bhandari’s search for her place and voice, and an incisive analysis of America’s relationship with the rest of the world through the most powerful tool of diplomacy: education. "Bhandari's informative memoir is for readers who want to understand how interconnected the world really is. Bhandari is a very talented writer, knowing that in a sea of data there is no better life raft than the telling anecdote." ~ Kirkus Reviews
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Cooking with Marika (Delicious Nutrition) by award-winning author and Certified Holistic Health Coach Marika Blossfeldt. This is a cookbook and nutrition guide in one. Integrating the wisdom of Eastern philosophies with the knowledge of Western science, Marika gently guides the reader to a deeper understanding of how food affects our entire being. She teaches us how to strengthen immunity, restore and maintain a healthy digestive tract, prevent inflammation and lose weight—without counting calories, dieting or deprivation. Marika is also the author of ESSENTIAL NOURISHMENT: Recipes from My Estonian Farm.
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Excerpt from: A Way Back to Health (She Writes Press) by Kelley Murray Skoloda. WIthout experiencing any symptoms, Kelley received a shocking diagnosis: colon cancer. This memoir reveals how surprising lessons paved the way for her recovery. She offers practical advice for those who find themselves in a similar situation, and illuminates how personal stories can powerfully motivate and heal. In addition to telling her own story, Kelley also features examples of how other, amazing survivors have learned to manage, survive and thrive in the face of cancer.
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Excerpt from: The Black Girl's Guide to Healing Emotional Wounds (Nvision Solutions) by Nijiama Smalls. Nijiama is all too familiar with the suffering of Black girls and shares her personal journey of uncovering the origin of Black girl trauma while also addressing the ongoing process of healing and recovery from wounds caused by past hurts. This book provides a prescription for healing in the form of a soul-cleansing process. She hopes that readers are set free to live the life God has planned for them. It’s time to heal and end the suffering.
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Excerpt from: Crazy: Reclaiming Life from the Shadow of Traumatic Memory (Koehler Books) by Lyn Barrett. This unforgettable memoir explores how the author was knocked off course by a family crisis that triggered her inner world to crumble. Her diagnosis of multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder, threatened her life as she knew it, her family, and her future. With the knowledge that DID is a coping strategy young children use to protect themselves from chronic trauma, Lyn embarked on a journey to discover her true self.
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Excerpt from: Blooming in Winter (She Writes Press) by Pam Valois. When Pam Valois met her in the 1970s, Jacomena (Jackie) Maybeck was a model of zestful, hands-on living and aging, still tarring roofs and splitting logs in her seventies, and Pam was a young working mother trying to carve out time for creative projects. Jackie became her mentor. Decades later, when Pam and her husband bought Jackie’s home, she realized that she knew little about her mentor’s fascinating life. What had shaped and supported Jackie in living “at full tilt” until her death at ninety-five?
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