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From the political climate to natural disasters, to managing the stress and overwhelm of everyday life, women have more to deal with than ever. Life feels overwhelming and exhausting much of the time. The third in her Hot Mess to Mindful Mom series, One Minute to Zen will provide numerous tools to help deal with stress in one minute, the same amount of time it can take for all hell to break loose! When teaching moms across the country, while giving talks to corporations, and across Ali’s thriving social media channels, people are asking for more tools to use quickly and effectively to help recover from the stress they face in daily life. In One Minute to Zen, Ali has compiled a list of tools that make it possible to recalibrate, achieve balance, and recover from stress quickly and with ease, in order to live a more mindful and joyful life. Known for her authenticity and relatability, Ali shares personal stories and anecdotes to help connect her audience and show how to really put her suggestions to use. The goal is to put these tools into the hands of every mother who needs them (we all do!) and also teach them how to pass them on to their children, thus creating in each family a chain reaction of calm and confidence when faced with challenges big and small. -
In this accessible, straightforward book, seasoned author Betsy Graziani Fasbinder offers readers the why, what, and how of public speaking, along with exercises and resources to support ongoing learning. She provides inspiration and encouragement to help writers to overcome their fears of public speaking, but she doesn’t stop there; she also lays out the practical, nuts-and-bolts tools they need to select, deselect, and arrange the content of what to say when they’re on a podium, in an interview, or in casual conversations about their writing, and includes a model for handling challenging questions from interviewers and audience members with confidence and grace. Part practical how-to—full of usable tools and tips—and part author cheerleader and champion, From Page to Stage is the ultimate resource for writers who wish bring their storytelling skills to their speaking opportunities. -
This story begins with an ending: the day Maureen Muldoon realized the devastating fact that her husband was having an affair―and leaving her for Miss Universe. Miss freaking Universe! How does this even happen?
An intimate examination of Muldoon’s unraveling in the face of this betrayal, A Spiritual Vixen’s Guide to An Unapologetic Life takes a fresh, funny and fearless look at loss, denial, anger, grace, and liberation. Muldoon reveals the strength that comes from facing one’s fears, the humor that arrives in the darkest hours, and the miracles that happen when you least expect them in this grand tapestry of tales from the dark side. Ultimately, with wit and wisdom, she walks herself out of hell in a pair of sexy stilettos and manages to do what the all the king’s horse and all the king’s men could not: she puts herself back together. And in doing so, she comes to find more beauty and strength in the fractured places than anyone would have ever imagined. -
“You can quit waiting for the other shoe to drop: I’m in it for life.” Those are the fateful, repeated words that help convince Kathryn Taylor to remarry, retire from her thirty-year profession, sell her home, and relocate in support of her new husband’s career. But five years later, in a car packed with food she has carefully prepared to nourish her husband’s dying brother, the other shoe does drop. With this, the life Taylor has come to know is over. Relying on the strength of a lifelong friend who refuses to let her succumb to the intense waves of grief, she slowly begins to find her way out of the shadows of grief. Over the course of two years, through appointments with attorneys and therapists, purging shared belongings, and pushing herself to meet new people and do new things, Taylor not only regains a sense of control in her life, she also learns to enjoy the new life she has built, the friendships she’s formed—and to savor her newfound strength. -
Fetish Girl is a kinky roller coaster ride through addiction, violence, motherhood, sex, and the creation of Evil Kitty, Bella LaVey’s larger-than-life dominatrix persona. It is a singular memoir that shows that a heavily tatted BDSM sex worker can be courageous enough to come to terms with her painful truths and raise a healthy, loving child, even as she remains boldly sexual and authentic. It’s the story of a woman attracted to extremes who is willing to go to great lengths to uncover and make peace with her true nature. -
At the age of thirty-five, desperate to salvage a self that has been suffocating for years—and to save her two-year-old son from witnessing a miserable relationship between his parents—Jane Binns leaves her husband of twelve years. She has no plan or intention but to leave, however, and therein begins the misadventures lying in wait for her. Over the years that follow, Binns falls in love with Steve, a man eighteen years her senior who has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder since his return from military service in Vietnam forty years prior, and who has a talent for making her feel heard. Despite his inability to provide anything more than a spurious connection, run on a mercurial and erratic schedule, and despite his repeated rejections of her love, she continues to pursue him. During their off periods, she dates other men—but she inevitably compares each new suitor to Steve, and all of them fall short. Ultimately, it takes the loss of her father in the summer of 2014, followed by the death of her ex-husband five months later, for her to finally let go of Steve—and, in the process, fully unearth the self she’s been chasing all along. -
At forty-eight years old, Cheryl Suchors—hoping to find concrete successes and a feeling of control as she changes careers and fifty stares at her from the horizon—vows to summit the highest forty-eight peaks in New Hampshire’s grueling White Mountains. Neglecting to consider her flimsy body, scoliosis, bum knee, and fear of heights, she dives into the challenge. Along the way, Suchors suffers numerous injuries; her hiking buddy succumbs to ovarian cancer; and she endures breast cancer, a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and five years of adjuvant therapy herself. But she always returns to the mountains—and in that connection she finds spiritual nourishment, as well as a space powerful enough to hold her grief. Over the ten years it takes her to complete her quest, she learns that mastery alone doesn’t satisfy her and control is often an illusion—that she must connect with hiking comrades and with nature in order to feel nourished and enriched. In the end, Suchors creates her own definition of success. -
Mary Carlson didn't start out to become a veterinarian, let alone the owner and caretaker of cats (many), dogs (two, both huskies), and horses (some with manners, some without) in Colorado. She was a suburban Chicago girl; all she knew of the American West came from the stories her uncle, who had settled in northern Colorado, told her during his annual visits. But thanks to him, she ended up moving to Fort Collins, Colorado for college—and after falling in love with a man she'd become friends with in her final year of college, when he was a student at the CSU School of Veterinary Medicine, she remained there. Watching the work Earl did as a veterinarian inspired Mary to eventually leave her tenured teaching position and enter vet school, after which she opened her own, feline-exclusive clinic. Along the way, there were numerous pets, grueling years of vet school, a shattered hip, an enduring love, illness, and death—and the rediscovery that life, especially a life full of delightful animals, is worth living. -
Fifteen-year-old Hannah was a privileged young girl with a promising future, but that didn’t stop her from sliding into an abyss of sex, drugs, alcohol, and other high-risk behaviors. Off the Rails narrates Hannah’s sudden decline and subsequent treatment through the raw, honest, compelling voices of Hannah and her shocked and desperate mother—each one telling her side of the story. Fearing that they couldn’t keep their teen safe, Hannah’s parents made the agonizing decision to send her to her to a wilderness program, and then to residential treatment. Off the Rails tells the story of the two tough years Hannah spent in three separate programs—and ponders the factors that contributed to her ultimate recovery. Written for parents of teens experimenting with high-risk behaviors, as well as those trying to navigate the controversial world of teen treatment programs, Off the Rails is an inspiring story of family love, determination, and the last-resort intervention that helped one troubled young woman find sobriety after a terrifying and harrowing journey. -
Carly Gelsinger is an awkward and lonely thirteen-year-old when she stumbles into Pine Canyon Assemblies of God, the cracked stucco church on the outskirts of her remote small town. She assimilates, despite her apprehensions, because she is desperate to belong. Soon, she is on fire for God. She speaks in tongues, slays demons, and follows her abusive pastor’s every word—and it’s not until her life is burnt to the ground that she finds the courage to leave. Raw and illuminating, Once You Go In is a coming-of-age story about the beauty and danger of absolute faith, and the stories people tell themselves to avoid their deepest fears. -
What if you could bake bread once a week, every week? What if the smell of fresh baking bread could turn your house into a home? And what if the act of making the bread—mixing and kneading, watching and waiting—could heal your heartache and your emptiness, your sense of being overwhelmed? It can. This is the surprise that physician-mother Beth Ricanati learned when she started baking challah almost a decade ago: that simply stopping and baking bread was the best medicine she could prescribe for women in a fast-paced world. Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs chronicles a journey of a thousand challahs and one woman’s quest for wellness and peace.
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Polio is back in the news. Almost forgotten for decades in the US, it has been brought back into the spotlight by the anti-vaxxer movement—but for millions around the world, especially those who have residual or late effects of polio, this virus has never been old news. Francine Falk-Allen was only three years old when she contracted polio and nearly temporarily lost the ability to stand and walk. Here, she tells the story of how a toddler learned grown-up lessons too soon; a schoolgirl tried her best to be a “normie,” on into young adulthood; and a woman finally found her balance, physically and spiritually. In lucid, dryly humorous prose, she also explores how her disability has affected her choices in living a fulfilling (and amusing) life in every area—relationships, career, religion (or not), athleticism, artistic expression, and aging, to name a few. A clear-eyed examination of living with a handicap, Not a Poster Child is one woman’s story of finding her way to a balanced life—one with a little snarkiness and a lot of joy.
