ALS Saved My Life ... until it didn't


Jenni Kleinman Berebitsky - 2018
    But what do we do when nothing goes as we had ever hoped? Jenni Berebitsky, diagnosed in 2009 with ALS has been answering these questions every day. With the hope of helping others move forward after life altering events, Jenni shares her story of life wiht ALS, outlining practical and existential changes needed to adapt and thrive.

Figuring Shit Out: Love, Laughter, Suicide, and Survival


Amy Biancolli - 2014
    "I mean, YOUR life isn't over. Beyond the kids. You'll go on living, doing things. This isn't it."I know, I assure him. I have the kids. They need me. They're my life now."OK," he replies, then grunts—more of a brief hum. He only hums when he thinks I'm full of shit.Shockingly single. Amy Biancolli's life went off script more dramatically than most after her husband of twenty years jumped off the roof of a parking garage. Left with three children, a three-story house, and a pile of knotty psychological complications, Amy realizes the flooding dishwasher, dead car battery, rapidly growing lawn, basement sump pump, and broken doorknob aren't going to fix themselves. She also realizes that "figuring shit out" means accepting the horrors that came her way, rolling with them, slogging through them, helping others through theirs, and working her way through life with love and laughter.Amy Biancolli is an author and journalist whose column appears in the Albany Times Union. Before that, Amy served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Biancolli is the author of House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year. Amy lives in Albany, New York, with her three children.

Daughters of the Red Light: Coming of Age in Mumbai's Brothels (DAWNS Global Humanitarian Storytelling Book 2)


Shanoor Seervai - 2015
    Years later, now a newspaper reporter, she returns to gain a deeper understanding of the lives of sex workers.Daughters of the Red Light is a searing look at the poverty, injustice and stigma that keep entire families from escaping India's notorious sex industry. Seervai takes readers to Mumbai’s grittiest alleyways to discover the stories of these women and girls. As she unravels the brutal web entangling them, she finds an unexpected reason for hope. ABOUT THE AUTHORShanoor Seervai is an Indian writer and journalist. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast, Guernica Magazine, The Caravan and The Indian Express. Born and raised in Mumbai, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is pursuing an advanced degree in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.EARLY PRAISE FOR DAUGHTERS OF THE RED LIGHT"This is a meaningful and important piece of writing that contributes in a significant way toward understanding the lives of sex workers and their families and how we might help alleviate their marginalization and suffering. Shanoor Seervai's book shows you the humanity of the mothers and children in the red light district, as she takes you on her journey of discovery into their world and her place in the world at large. It gave me new insight into the lives of the sex workers and their children, and how the tireless work of some offers real hope—the greatest gift of all."— Geeta Anand, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Cure"Most writing about India's underbelly treats people as passive victims. It is far too easy to find stories of misery in Indian cities and hold them up as one-dimensional examples of the country's uneven progress. Shanoor Seervai does not do cutouts. She dives into the world of Mumbai's sex workers, introducing us to real women with families and dreams we recognize. She brings the reader along for her journey, which is journalistic as well as personal, as she navigates the gender norms and class divides of urban India with sharp observations and true empathy. I've been visiting Mumbai all my life and feel I understand it better having read this heartfelt work."— Shashank Bengali, South Asia bureau chief, Los Angeles Times"A thought-provoking headlong dive into a little known culture."— Sonia Faleiro, Award-winning author of Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars."With this honest and insightful memoir, Shanoor Seervai peels back a tattered curtain to reveal the complex and brutal world of Mumbai’s commercial sex trade. Through her eyes, we begin to really see the women — and children — behind the makeup. Through her journey we are challenged to consider our common humanity; and our own, personal response to the injustices that land (and keep) millions of the world’s most vulnerable children in the hell we call the 'Red Light.'"— Laura Entwistle, Founder and CEO of EmancipAction, an international non-profit organization working to end child sex trafficking around the world

Cold Vein


Anne Tonner - 2017
    Although she is sixteen, she weighs as much as an eight-year-old. We have tried everything the medical system has to offer – psychologists, psychiatrists, family therapists, dieticians, drugs … but nothing has worked. And now here we are, she and I, flying to the other side of the world in a last ditch effort to save her. Anorexia is a difficult thing to get people to understand. Usually they will look at me incredulously. Sometimes they will come right out and say what I know they are thinking: Why can’t you just get her to eat?Anne Tonner is a high achieving human rights lawyer and used to facing battles and winning. But when her 13-year-old daughter Chloe stops eating and is diagnosed with anorexia, she is confronted with the mother of all enemies, one that is completely unfathomable and seemingly incurable. Anne and her family throw everything they have at facing the ‘demon' they name 'Cold Vein'. But some three years later Chloe is still desperately ill and the family is in tatters. In a last ditch effort they travel across the world to attend a ground breaking- clinic in Stockholm, knowing that this might be the only chance Chloe has to survive.Beautifully and engagingly written, Anne’s depiction of the devastating effects of anorexia is honest, tough and compelling. Ultimately uplifting, this story will shed light on one of the most insidious and dangerous mental conditions afflicting modern society today.

A Lap Around Alaska: An AlCan Adventure


Shawn Inmon - 2017
    Join author Shawn Inmon and his twenty year old Subaru Outback on his epic solo road trip through British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska. Part personal odyssey, part travel memoir, take an expedition into one of North America's last remaining wildernesses. If you dream of packing up your four-wheeler, your snow boots and camera, and setting off to explore the wilderness, A Lap Around Alaska will give you a rare glimpse into the Land of the Midnight Sun, of moose, bear, and bald eagles, of monumental glaciers and scenery so staggering it brings tears to your eyes. If you hunger for adventure and want to discover untouched beauty and to experience the majesty of the pristine North for yourself-Shawn saved the passenger seat just for you. This book also includes two bonus memoirs of life in Alaska in the 1970s-My First Alaskan Summer and My Matanuska Summer.

Four Funerals and a Wedding: Resilience in a Time of Grief


Jill Smolowe - 2014
    With humor and quiet wisdom, and with a lens firmly trained on what helped her tolerate and rebound from so much sorrow, she offers answers to questions we all confront in the face of loss, and reminds us that grief is not only about endings—it’s about new beginnings.