“On a raw night in February,” writes author Alyssa Shelasky, author of Apron Anxiety, “I ordered a peppermint tea in a bright Greenwich Village diner and unwrapped a bound galley of my book. It was the first time I saw how everything came together – from the cover selection, to the blurbs on the back, to my 80,000–something words. Oh, those words! The words that were my core being for an entire year straight! Just touching the pages was surreal. I started to cry. And then I laughed. Because as I read the story, as a girl sitting in a diner, not an author wrestling with ‘her art,’ this cool-looking paperback was actually funny and touching!”
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Posts Tagged ‘autobiography’
Alyssa Shelasky on Apron Anxiety, Her Memoir (With Recipes)
Thursday, April 26th, 2012Patricia Ellis Herr, Author of Up, on Empowering Steps
Thursday, March 1st, 2012“Try this,” recommends Patricia Ellis Herr, author of Up, “next time you and your child have a warm day to spend together, go for a walk, and let her decide on the destination, but have a ‘no carrying’ rule; this is a particularly empowering approach. Right away, your child knows that she has the power to decide where the two of you are going, and that she will be responsible for getting there on her own two feet. If her desired destination seems unrealistic, don’t worry, and don’t naysay. Without judgment or negative assumptions, let her try.”
Adrienne Arieff on Her Memoir The Sacred Thread
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012“In 2008, I traveled nine thousand miles to northern India near the border of Pakistan, to have a child,” writes author Adrienne Arieff. “I went to India under the direction of a fertility specialist to whom I only spoken over the phone, to undergo IVF treatment, with the help of an Indian surrogate I had never met. The Sacred Thread offers my perspective and a look at the landscape and culture of India through the lens of an American couple searching for family, an Indian family searching for a future, and a doctor offering a chance for both to find what they seek.”
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Thursday, January 26th, 2012Fans of The Art of Racing in the Rain, get ready for a memoir that Garth Stein calls “stunning . . . an incredible journey, both inward and outward.” Read It Forward favorite Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted and Cowboys Are My Weakness, says Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild “is a big, brave, break-your-heart-and-put-it-back-together-again kind of book. Cheryl Strayed is a courageous, gritty, and deceptively elegant writer. She walked the Pacific Crest Trail to find forgiveness, came back with generosity – and now she shares her reward with us. I snorted with laughter, I wept uncontrollably; I don’t even want to know the person who isn’t going to love Wild. This is a beautifully made, utterly realized book.”
Lucia Greenhouse’s Journey Out of Christian Science
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011“In the back of my mind,” writes Lucia Greenhouse, author of fathermothergod, “was a little boy I didn’t know named Ian Lundman. In 1989, three years after my mother died, Ian Lundman died of untreated juvenile diabetes. His mother had been a Christian Scientist. When Ian became ill, his mother called a Christian Science practitioner (it could have been my father, but wasn’t) instead of a doctor. A Christian Science nurse sat beside this little boy as he lay dying of something that insulin would have successfully treated.” RIFers! In a book group? Check out the end of this post for a special offer for your group.
Sandra Beasley on Embracing Life with Allergies
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011“In my new memoir, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life,” says Sandra Beasley, “I delve into the nitty-gritty of how food allergies affect us, all the way from childhood into our teenage and adult years. I don’t just mean how allergies impact our physical selves (though that can be comically mortifying) but how they shape our social selves, our romantic selves, our role in a family, and our sense of mortality. Your worldview changes when something as simple as a bite of cake or a first-date kiss can send you to the hospital.”










