This autobiography is a memoir of poetry and short stories depicting the personal triumph over tragedy and the life of Christina M. Brown. She gives personal accounts of the experiences in her life; taking you inside her mind as she struggled and battled many storms and strongholds. Many of these challenges directed her down dangerous paths. However, she goes on to tell of how she found the light and through it all would weather the storms and survive.She is passionate about uplifting and edifying the souls of others. With great detail she encourages the reader to fight for life and realize they are not alone. If she can beat the odds, so can you. The riveting and deep poems and stories are sure to reach inside your soul to find the will to make it and find your purpose.

The Gift of Memoir is a wonderful guide for Memoir Writing. I especially appreciate how Taylor examines the memoirs of historic, well-known or highly-controversial people for examples of good craft and content, and to illustrate the many quirks and magnificence of the human journey.” –Pegi Eyers, author of Ancient Spirit Rising “Every writer can benefit from reading Diane Taylor’s wonderfully clear, down-to-earth, practical, and inspiring book. But for the memoirist, in particular, Taylor’s expertise is invaluable.” –Philip Marchand, National Post columnist and author of Ghost Empire: How the French Almost Conquered North America The Gift of Memoir is Diane Taylor's gift to writers of every kind, but especially those with a personal or family story to tell. In words that are themselves a stellar example of literary craftsmanship, Taylor shows writers how to show up, open up, and write. She shares moving stories from her own adventurous life. Her short chapters, full of practical advice and inspiring examples, cover such topics as: Establishing a writing ritual Why write memoir? Joining a writing community for diversity and connection Telling the truth when you aren’t sure Journaling to unlock the soul How to approach traumatic events Four strategies to retrieve memories The ingredients of a good anecdote The several senses, not just five, for vivid writing How to choose a form that fits your writing The revision process

Author Robert Wood Darby was born and raised in Georgia. This memoir is about the anti-racism advocate growing up in the fifties and sixties and coming of age in the segregated South during the Civil Rights Movement. Darby became an antiwar activist during the Vietnam War. He studied at Emory University, then at Tufts and Harvard in the late sixties - a time of upheaval for the entire country. He also chronicles his affliction with mental illness and manic depression, which has gone into remission.

The courageous story of Van Meers, born in a home for unwed mothers in Ghent, Belgium, 1930. It is told in her own words in a frank, humorous and down-to-earth manner. She grew up as a "bastard" during the Great Depression, and sees her family and country told apart by prejudice and politics in World War II, and recounts how she struggles to redefine herself in turbulent postwar Europe. Based on hundreds of hours of taped interviews, Rachel's view of a family "not-quite-normal," her amazing strength in the face of abusive and degrading treatment, and her strong faith and upbeat attitude make her story a joy and inspiration to read.

THE STORY BEHIND THE DOCUMENTARY MY NAME IS PAULI MURRAY A prophetic memoir by the activist who “articulated the intellectual foundations” (The New Yorker) of the civil rights and women’s rights movements. First published posthumously in 1987, Pauli Murray’s Song in a Weary Throat was critically lauded, winning the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award among other distinctions. Yet Murray’s name and extraordinary influence receded from view in the intervening years; now they are once again entering the public discourse. At last, with the republication of this “beautifully crafted” memoir, Song in a Weary Throat takes its rightful place among the great civil rights autobiographies of the twentieth century. In a voice that is energetic, wry, and direct, Murray tells of a childhood dramatically altered by the sudden loss of her spirited, hard-working parents. Orphaned at age four, she was sent from Baltimore to segregated Durham, North Carolina, to live with her unflappable Aunt Pauline, who, while strict, was liberal-minded in accepting the tomboy Pauli as “my little boy-girl.” In fact, throughout her life, Murray would struggle with feelings of sexual “in-betweenness”—she tried unsuccessfully to get her doctors to give her testosterone—that today we would recognize as a transgendered identity. We then follow Murray north at the age of seventeen to New York City’s Hunter College, to her embrace of Gandhi’s Satyagraha—nonviolent resistance—and south again, where she experienced Jim Crow firsthand. An early Freedom Rider, she was arrested in 1940, fifteen years before Rosa Parks’ disobedience, for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus. Murray’s activism led to relationships with Thurgood Marshall and Eleanor Roosevelt—who respectfully referred to Murray as a “firebrand”—and propelled her to a Howard University law degree and a lifelong fight against "Jane Crow" sexism. We also read Betty Friedan’s enthusiastic response to Murray’s call for an NAACP for Women—the origins of NOW. Murray sets these thrilling high-water marks against the backdrop of uncertain finances, chronic fatigue, and tragic losses both private and public, as Patricia Bell-Scott’s engaging introduction brings to life. Now, more than thirty years after her death in 1985, Murray—poet, memoirist, lawyer, activist, and Episcopal priest—gains long-deserved recognition through a rediscovered memoir that serves as a “powerful witness” (Brittney Cooper) to a pivotal era in the American twentieth century.