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Now, having told my story, I feel that a huge burden has been lifted. My secrets are now in the open and I believe that no girl or woman in the world should have such dark secrets hiding in her heart. I want to encourage all women who are or have suffered the indignation of abuse to break free of the silence, live their lives with joy and look for ways to lift up others as well. Together, we can give voice to the voiceless, all over the world. -
As a naive freshman, Catherine meets Walter, a senior and Big Man on Campus whose sophistication, confidence, and wealth both intimidate and excite her. A three-year absentee courtship follows, during which time the idea of Walt tethers Catherine to safety. She was programmed to marry someone like him, so she ignores the warning signs that they might not be a good match. Hoping to please her mother and seeking refuge from her fraught childhood, she marries and has children with him—but the marriage doesn’t last. Once divorced, Catherine finds herself in a war with Walt over money, and then over access to her children—and suddenly, she can no longer ignore her childhood trauma. The high stakes of her battle with her ex-husband forge her like steel, finding every vulnerability where she needs to heal. Gradually, she develops a backbone, relinquishes her trauma-induced, people-pleasing ways, and steps into her own power. Honest and unflinching, The Longest War reminds us that there’s always a way through when we access the courage within ourselves. No matter how painful life’s difficulties, they offer us the opportunity to heal ourselves and evolve into more open, loving, compassionate people. The choice is ours. -
Discover the surprising literary and poetic history of the RMS Titanic! Imagine getting the inside, behind the scenes story of the Titanic tragedy written by those who did not survive - but whose poetry and short accounts of the moments leading up to the Titanic sinking did. "If you love poetry, history, and feeling like Indiana Jones, read this book now." 5 Stars from Erin Nicole Cochran for Readers' Favorite The time has finally come to share the World Codex' revelations with the public at large. Codex SE is a concerted work of dedicated people who have worked tirelessly to bring this literary publication to the world stage. My connection to Titanic, through my great-grandfather's experience, has played an essential role as to who I am, cultivating an awareness of the importance of art as it inspires the better nature of humanity - through life's inevitable turmoil and even disaster. Discover unpublished poems and prose by historical figures including Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Edgar Allan Poe, Sylvia Barrett, Herman Holmes, Robert Wolcott, and many more. -
“In the pit of depression, I questioned a miracle I experienced in my teens, and so my deep curiosity for spiritual understanding was reborn.” – Jacqui Burnett The journey of life can be chaotic. How do we make sense of it? Aurobindo said, "All Life is Yoga". Jacqui Burnett's life story is a testament to dealing with life off the mat. She was born into a perfect family, but by age 16 Jacqui Burnett wants to kill her father. Decades later Jacqui believes she's left her turbulent childhood past and the trauma of multiple near- death experiences behind her. On the surface, she has everything she’s ever dreamed of – a solid education, success, and a wonderful husband. What Jacqui doesn’t know is that she’s about to lose everything. -
Our recent storms didn't start in 2020 or 2016. They started decades ago in the 1960s - a whirlwind of threatened nuclear catastrophe, then police dogs and rednecks terrorizing civil rights marchers down south, then Vietnamese children fleeing from napalm flames. Then draft notices to go to Vietnam to "fight commies." A small town boy started by supporting rightist Goldwater against the "peace candidate" Johnson, but rapidly changed in the face of the civil rights and anti-war movements, and started a quest that hasn't ended yet.This book tells Dee Knight's story of "waking up" to the truth about the US war in Vietnam, then refusing the draft and going to Canada where he lived for six years. It relates the years-long campaign for amnesty, in which Knight was a leader. After war resisters won a partial amnesty, Knight continued campaigning against US wars up to the present day. A reviewer adds: Like many others who became politicized during the US war on the Vietnamese, Knight continued his political work after the war finally ended in 1975. In addition to his work for complete and total amnesty, Knight became involved in various anti-imperialist work, from Nicaragua to Iran. In fact, he spent several months in Nicaragua as a member of the organization TecNica. This organization was involved in numerous locally-based water filtration and electricity production projects and was made up of many international volunteers hoping to help out the Sandinista revolutionary government. During this time, the government was also fighting a war against US-funded mercenaries known for their brutal and bloody killings of civilians. In a chapter titled “A Love Song to Nicaragua,” Knight describes his work and the nature of a nation in the early years of a revolutionary government. The subsequent chapters in this text tell the story of Knight’s continued political involvement and is hopes for a better world. Each chapter ends with a reflection on the meaning of the events in the chapter and their role in the larger picture of social change with the goal of a socialist world as its outcome. In addition, My Whirlwind Lives includes a number of appendices: documents from the draft resistance movement, the amnesty campaign and a reflection on the Green New Deal, among others. This is a personal testimony from a human who has dedicated his life to a more just world. The narrative is conversational and thoughtful. --Reviewer: Ron Jacobs -
Human Justice is the true story of a human rights lawyer’s last trial in a 15-year career spent helping humans living on the margins enforce civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. Corporate values, which are only about money and nothing else, played out to their logical extreme in the trial, signaling that corporatism is incompatible with a sustainable future for our species and our planet. The harmonic divide reverberating in our society is less about blue values versus red values and more about human values versus corporate values—and the corporate side is winning. Human values must always trump corporate values. -
Follow the paths of Sarah and Will (or Sam) as they tell their stories of trust, secrets, and betrayal on the frontier in the old West. Their pioneer spirit helped to fuel the expansion into the Western territories of the United States. The two are historically on their separate journeys, yet they remain intimately connected. Through the fictionalized Western frontier tale of Sam and Sarah, the author, Beverly Scott, was inspired to reveal rumored secrets from her family history. In 1878, Will is on the run after killing a man in a barroom gunfight. He escapes the Texas Rangers by joining a cattle drive as a cook headed to Dodge City. He struggles with the dilemma of saving his life or attempting to return to his pregnant wife and five children. Just when he thinks he might be able to return home, he is confronted by a bounty hunter who captures him and plans to return him to Fort Worth, Texas to be hanged. Although Will changes his name to Sam, he remains an irresponsible, lonely and untrustworthy man on the dodge from the law who abandons the women he loves. He ultimately seeks redemption and marries Sarah. In 1911, Sarah, a pioneer woman and a widow with five children, struggles to find the inner strength to overcome betrayal, loneliness, fears, and self-doubt. Her husband, Sam, thirty years her senior, died with a mysterious and defiant declaration, “I won’t answer!”. Despite poverty and a crippling illness, she draws on her pioneer spirit to hold her family together and return to Nebraska to be near her parents and siblings. When Sarah returns to Nebraska she receives staggering news which complicates her efforts to support her children. She is shocked, angry and emotionally devastated. Since she is attempting to establish herself in the community as a teacher, she believes she must keep her secret even from her own family. Will Sarah find forgiveness in her heart and the resolve to accept her new life alone?
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Wounded No More tells the story of a time when Dawna’s life was shattered by abuse in her first marriage. Dawna escaped with her 4-year-old son David, and they took off in the only direction they knew : “away from here!”Guided forward by circumstance, intuition and the wisdom of her beloved Grandmother’s spirit, she drove 50, 000 miles around the world in a white Mercedes Diesel.
Two years later, they made their way across America, finally nesting in the mountains of Vermont.
This tale is for all who chose to travel beyond their wounds, toward what they can make possible.
Narrated by Sarah Smithton, it is produced by Pro Audio Voices. -
"Two-Pound Baby Wins Life Fight" Imbalanced traces Sheri Thomas' remarkable journey from a front-page headline in 1962 to her current role as an advocate fighting to remove the stigmas surrounding physical disabilities and mental health. Unflinching, poignant and humorous, Imbalanced is her personal account of juggling lifelong challenges-including cerebral palsy, migraines and brain surgery-with a successful career before unexpectedly facing serious mental health crises in her fifties. -
What does it take to overcome deeply embedded family traumas, career-ending betrayals, and failed relationships? What is the personal cost of keeping secrets—and staying in the closet? These are questions that Mary Means explores in her memoir, as she navigates growing up as a young closeted lesbian in Georgia during the 1960s and learning to love—and be loved—as an adult. Through the deaths of loved ones, the fear of discovery, and the budding of a legacy that would come to change lives across the nation, Something Worth Saving tells a story of resilience and self-discovery perfect for anyone who has ever struggled to maintain a flawless facade when inside they were crumbling. Mary Means is an award-winning leader, founder of the Main Street revitalization movement that has brought vitality back to countless town centers. Her candor and vulnerability permeate her remarkable story. -
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By age four, Claudia Marseille had hardly uttered a word. When her parents finally had her hearing tested and learned she had a severe hearing loss, they chose to mainstream her, hoping this would offer her the most “normal” childhood possible. With the help of a primitive hearing aid, Claudia worked hard to learn to hear, lipread, and speak even as she tried to hide her disability in order to fit in. As a result, she was often misunderstood, lonely, and isolated—fitting into neither the hearing world nor the Deaf culture. This memoir explores Claudia’s relationships with her German refugee parents—a disturbed, psychoanalyst father obsessed over various harebrained projects and moneymaking schemes and a Jewish mother who had survived the Holocaust in Munich—and with her own identity. Claudia shares how she emerged from loneliness and social isolation, explored her Jewish identity, struggled to find a career compatible with hearing loss, and eventually opened herself to a life of creativity and love. But You Look So Normal is the inspiring story of a life affected but not defined by an invisible disability. It is a journey through family, loss, shame, identity, love, and healing as Claudia finally, joyfully, finds her place in the world. -
In stories tailor-made for pet lovers, a seasoned veterinarian shares her good, bad, and messy days on the job—and highlights the undeniable magic of the human-animal bond. Dr. Dawn Filos’s own menagerie of pets, including Willie the woolly monkey, primed her for a. career as a veterinarian. With emotional honesty, Dr. Dawn shares her heartfelt, and often hilarious journey, from nervous novice to seasoned, self-assured doctor. This modern-day James Herriot finds her niche as a house-call vet, with unique, intimate access into the homes and lives of her beloved patients and their human families. She understands with all of her heart that no visit or emergency is too trivial to a pet parent. After reading Tales of a Pet Vet you will never see your own vet the same way. Sometimes heartwarming, sometimes sad, and often hilarious, Tales of a Pet Vet will resonate deeply with pet lovers everywhere.
