Tour Dates: August 3, 2009 - September 3, 2009

Title: Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir

Author: Sue Williams Silverman

Genre: Writing

Synopsis: Everyone has a story to tell. Fearless Confessions is a guidebook for people who want to take possession of their lives by putting their experiences down on paper--or in a Web site or e-book. Enhanced with illustrative examples from many different writers as well as writing exercises, this guide helps writers navigate a range of issues from craft to ethics to marketing and will be useful to both beginners and more accomplished writers.

The rise of interest in memoir recognizes the power of the genre to move and affect not just individual readers but society at large. Sue William Silverman covers traditional writing topics such as metaphor, theme, plot, and voice and also includes chapters on trusting memory and cultivating the courage to tell one's truth in the face of forces--from family members to the media--who would prefer that people with inconvenient pasts and views remain silent.

Silverman, an award-winning memoirist, draws upon her own personal and professional experience to provide an essential resource for transforming life into words that matter. Fearless Confessions is an atlas that contains maps to the remarkable places in each person's life that have yet to be explored.


About the Author:

I was born in Washington, D. C., where my father was a high government official in the Truman administration. Later, we moved to the West Indies where he was president of a bank. He was also a child molester. The juxtaposition of this double life-seemingly perfect in public, dark and scary in private-is what I write about in my memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You (University of Georgia Press, September 1999). In my second memoir, Love Sick: One Woman's Journey Through Sexual Addiction (W.W. Norton, February 2008), I show how I replicated this double life as an adult. In public, all seemed fine-I attended Boston University, worked on Capitol Hill, was married. But this image was a mask that hid my secret world of sexual encounters with dangerous men, a shadowy life of obsession.

From about 1980 to 1992, I tried to tell my story as fiction. Looking back, I realize that the five or six (unpublished) novels I wrote during this time lacked an authentic voice. It was my therapist, ironically, who finally suggested I write my own story. At first I resisted. I had never considered nonfiction and thought I had nothing to say about myself. Finally, just to humor him (I told myself), I acquiesced, even though I believed I'd only be able to write a paragraph at the most. Maybe a page. The moment I began to write "Terror, Father," however, I felt as if I'd just learned to speak, that I heard my real voice for the first time. I completed the manuscript in three months. And even though it took much longer to write Love Sick, I was finally writing what I knew. One thing I most love about writing memoirs, is that they provide me the opportunity to meet many courageous women. In fact, the responses that mean the most to me come in whispered phone calls and handwritten notes from my readers who thank me for telling their stories, too.

Now, in my upcoming book, Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir (University of Georgia Press, June, 2009), I share my experiences learning how to write, with the hope it'll help and encourage you to tell your story, too.

Tour Dates: September 14, 2009 - October 14, 2009

Title: Original Faith: What Your Life is Trying to Tell You

Author: Paul Maurice Martin

Genre: Nonfiction/Self-Help/Spirituality/Disabilities

Synopsis: Original Faith

With an Original Faith...

• There is a love that can be known and understood - if not fully, then in part.
• There is faith that can be experienced - with or without belief.
• There is work - and even dedication.
• There is the discovery that every one of us is more than a self alone.
• There is coming alive to the fact that we are here not to be served, but to serve.
• There is the possibility of true joy and a viable future for our children.
• There is the certainty of personal peace and integrity.

About the Author:

The manuscript for Original Faith took shape as a series of experiences and insights that arose spontaneously over a period of fifteen years. Instead of the proverbial 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration, the figures for Paul may have been about 50 percent each. Although he had to work hard to organize his material and articulate it clearly, his experiences, concepts and even his best language would arrive unexpectedly. Paul learned to keep a notepad in his car and by his bed. Much of the text was composed and committed to memory literally on the run, while jogging. Often he would be inspired by the words or actions of children and quickly jot down a few notes for reference the next morning - early morning. Paul rose at 2 or 3 AM to write before heading for work, having found that after work was not a creative time of day for him.

By 1994 Original Faith was nearly finished - and so was Paul's good health. The sudden onset of an unknown autoimmune disease initiated an unsuccessful struggle to obtain a diagnosis and treatment that lasted over a decade. During this period Paul continued working as an elementary school counselor but had to put his manuscript aside to make time for medical travel, research, ongoing treatment attempts, and ongoing problems posed by his health insurance.

After becoming too disabled to continue his career, Paul resumed work on Original Faith, completing the manuscript in December, 2004. Since then, he has completed two additional manuscripts and is working on a third. Housebound and semi-bedridden, Paul remains centered in a faith perspective that he offers to readers as a source of tremendous joy under favorable circumstances and tremendous strength under adversity.