My book reflects on and is being told through the eyes of a nine-year-old Southern girl named Sofay White, whos an only child. She resides in Oklahoma with her parents. Who by the way, also live in the same household as her Grandparents along with their fifteen children. Sofay is a mouthy, sassy but inquisitive little girl whos growing up too fast, making her mature with wits and wisdom. Shes always at the wrong place at the right time: snickering, laughing, observing, and ready to tell. Observing and ready to tell. Her life is centered on many daily outrageous activities among her aunts and uncles mishaps. However, out of all of her relatives Sofay is more connected to her favorite Auntie Eisha. Eisha, whom by the way, has been exposed to life changes while trying to stay above hot water in dealing with: family rivalry, family disconnections, and confusion between a man and a woman.
Seventy now-adult children of divorce give their candid and often heart-wrenching answers to eight questions (arranged in eight chapters, by question), including: What were the main effects of your parents' divorce on your life? What do you say to those who claim that "children are resilient" and "children are happy when their parents are happy"? What would you like to tell your parents then and now? What do you want adults in our culture to know about divorce? What role has your faith played in your healing? Their simple and poignant responses are difficult to read and yet not without hope. Most of the contributors--women and men, young and old, single and married--have never spoken of the pain and consequences of their parents' divorce until now. They have often never been asked, and they believe that no one really wants to know. Despite vastly different circumstances and details, the similarities in their testimonies are striking; as the reader will discover, the death of a child's family impacts the human heart in universal ways.
February 2011 On December the 17th 2010 Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi, a young street vendor from Tunisia, was so disheartened by The System that he took his own life, by setting himself on fire. I am witnessing the collective few become and overcome the collective many. A changing tide of humanity is sweeping across a region that will affect not only that region but the rest of the world also. How? I have my theories, but let the future answer that, and then let history question it. My story is also of change. I wanted to change the person I had become; a tormented alcohol and drug addict. Following a phone call to my father, my story continues on from my last book, Two Years: in the mind of a recovering alcoholic, from the last few months in prison to coming home, exploring and putting into practice all of those thoughts and insights I was having about life, the universe and how to live and get fulfilment from it. This has led me to become a better father and partner, an existence away from the turmoil and stress, a state of mind free of the demons that had troubled me for a lifetime. This has led to a platform of contentment, a budding sense of inner peace from where I can progress even further. This story is about how I initially created this new life through choices I had made with the help of the unknown-to some- and unexplored forces around us. So what more could I possibly give to my future generations than the key to how it all became so, the way of life, in A Message to my Family: Believe In Yourself.
On The Fringe is a community zine (handmade booklet) from Ithaca's unhoused neighbors and allies. Through a series of workshops at Saint John's Community Services (SJCS), participants created drawings and paintings, wrote poetry and essays, and contributed interviews and skillshares. The topics range from experiences being unhoused to universal themes of Living, Loss and Memory, Mind and Body, and Change. These themes make up the chapters of the book. This project was organized by Kate Laux, Case Manager and Art Options Coordinator at SJCS and Laura Rowley, owner of Illuminated Press. It was funded in part by a grant from the Decentralization Program and administered by the Community Arts Partnership.
Travels with My Family Family vacations are supposed to be something to look forward to. Unless, that is, your parents have a habit of turning every outing into a risky proposition — by accident, of course. So instead of dream vacations to Disney World and motels with swimming pools, these parents are always looking for that out-of-the-way destination where other tourists don't go. Their adventures involve eating grasshoppers in Mexico, forgetting the tide schedule while collecting sand dollars off the coast of Georgia, and mistaking alligators for logs in the middle of Okefenokee Swamp. On the Road Again In the sequel to Travels With My Family, the family is on the road again — this time to spend a year in a tiny village in southern France. They experiences the spring migration of sheep up to the mountain pastures, the annual running of the bulls (in which Charlie's father is trapped in a phone booth by a raging bull), and other adventures large and small. Most of all, though, Charlie and his little brother, Max, grow fond of their new neighbors — the man who steals ducks from the local river, the neighbor's dog who sleeps right in the middle of the street and their new friends Rachid and Ahmed, who teach them how to play soccer in the village square. Summer in the City Charlie can't wait for school to be over. But he's wondering what particular vacation ordeal his parents have lined up for the family this summer. Canoeing with alligators in Okefenokee? Getting caught in the middle of a revolutionary shootout in Mexico? Or perhaps another trip abroad? Turns out, this summer the family is staying put, in their hometown — Montreal, Canada. A "staycation," his parents call it. Charlie is doubtful at first but, ever resourceful, decides that there may be adventures and profit to be had in his own neighborhood. The Traveling Circus Charlie and his family are about to embark on another trip, to another out-of-the-way place off the beaten path. This time they are heading to an island in Croatia, a country Charlie has never even heard of. An incredibly beautiful country that lives in the shadow of war and conflict. Even for a seasoned traveler like Charlie, Croatia is a very different experience. To travel in a country where the language is completely unfamiliar and half the words have no vowels. To visit remote villages where the Internet is so slow, you might as well not have it at all. Where goats are a traffic-calming device, red cliffs loom like fortresses over an impossibly blue sea, and luggage porters are a line of women pushing wheelbarrows.
The 2016 presidential election and its aftermath ushered Danielle Hensley into a political, cultural, and spiritual reawakening that also revealed deep divides within her family of origin. She embarked on a quest to educate herself about her white privilege, pervasive judgmentalism, as well as racist, homophobic, and other bigoted ideologies among fellow Christians. She courageously faced hard truths, deep childhood wounds, and generational traumas, while learning the meaning of loyalty and what true love looks like in the face of seemingly insurmountable divides. If the Bough Breaks . . . examines the seemingly universal and growing chasm between the right and the left through the lens of a single family and within the context of the Episcopal Church, where such ideological, political, and spiritual differences can be as subtle as they are pernicious. Hensley’s tale is also a love story, if an unconventional one. It is the love story of a daughter/sister/granddaughter/mother fighting passionately against external and internal forces that conspire to destroy love and to continue unhealthy cycles of abuse and denial in her family. It is an everyday shero’s quest to cling to love and fight mightily for it, even if it means letting go of relationships that appear to be broken beyond repair. But are they truly, irreparably broken? Or can love, ultimately, triumph over fear—hers, theirs, and ours?
At her elementary school, a mean girl teases Ingrid about having two dads. Ingrid thinks everyone with “normal” parents has a mom and a dad. Boy, was she wrong. When her principal makes her write a journal, Ingrid learns just how normal her family really is.
"Tina Rasutton has grown up in the heart of New Orleans, faced with poverty and a life of tragedy she is determined to be sucessful. Tina must deal with the struggles of her five sisters and brother, her mother, and her best firend, often times ignoring her own struggles. Tina constantly faces obstacles head on trying to maintain everything in her life along. Realizing the need to not only give love but to recieve it takes her on a whirlwind of lessons."--Page 4 of cover
