Personal Memoirs

Your starting point doesn’t determine your destination. Turn your struggles into stepping stones for success. Dakota James Bailey’s From Foster Care to Millionaire is a raw and inspiring memoir of triumph over adversity. Growing up in foster care, working grueling factory shifts, and being labeled a “troublemaker,” Dakota seemed destined for failure. Instead, he built a multimillion-dollar company and a thriving real estate portfolio, proving that resilience and determination can rewrite any story.

Named after his well-respected father who disappeared when he was two, Wallo grew up in North Philadelphia with his mom, brothers, and grandmother, feeling pressure to achieve the success and reputation his father had on the streets. Wallace “Wallo267” Peeples spent twenty years in and out of the prison system before restarting his life and catapulting himself to unforeseen levels of social impact, cultural influence, and success. Now he shares his story with the trademark honesty that’s made him an inspiration to those who need it most.

The complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner's remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions. Dreaming of a "year in Provence" with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoe, Katie's teenage daughter. Katie and Zoe had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a 77-year-old woman set in her ways....

For more than a decade, Kathy Harrison has sheltered a shifting cast of troubled youngsters - the offspring of prostitutes and addicts; the sons and daughters of abusers; and teenage parents who aren't equipped for parenthood. All this, in addition to raising her three biological sons and two adopted daughters. What would motivate someone to give herself over to constant, largely uncompensated chaos? For Harrison, the answer is easy.

Broadmoor. Few place names in the world have such chilling resonance. For more than 150 years, it has contained the UK's most violent, dangerous, and psychopathic.

After Eric Davis spent over 16 years in the military, including a decade in the SEAL teams, his family was more than used to his absence on deployments and secret missions that could obscure his whereabouts for months at a time. Without a father figure in his own life since the age of 15, Eric was desperate to maintain the bonds he'd fought so hard to forge when his children were young - particularly with his son, Jason, because he knew how difficult it was to face the challenge of becoming a man on one's own.

One of five children, Pat watched as her alcoholic mother struggled to get by on charity, cons, and petty crimes. At age seven, Pat was taught to roll drunks for money. At 12, she was targeted for sex by a man eight years her senior; by 13, she was pregnant. By 15, Pat was a mother of two. Alone at 16, Pat was determined to make a better life for her children. But with no job skills and an eighth-grade education, her options were limited. She learned quickly that hustling and humor were the only tools she had to survive.

Almost every Latina has heard the phrase calladita te ves más bonita—you look most beautiful when you are silent. It's a message rooted in machismo passed from generation to generation, and one that poet and Latine therapist, Kim Guerra, grew up on. In Badass Bonita, Guerra tells a story of coming into her own power, and guides listeners through the process of finding their own. Rejecting what she was taught as a girl, she learned to use her voice and the more she listened to that inner niña, the more she unearthed her inner guerrera.

Writer. Mother. Wife. New Yorker. Abigail Pogrebin is many things, but the one that has defined her most profoundly is "identical twin." Pogrebin's relationship with her sister---both as children, when they were inseparable, and today, when she longs for that uncomplicated intimacy---inspired her to examine the phenomenon of twinship, to learn how other identical pairs regard their doubleness and what experts are learning about how DNA impacts our sense of identity and shapes our lives.

Introduction to Le Tour Once more I want to inspire you to travel – to France. I have been delighted at the lovely responses I have received to my books and have enjoyed supplying more precise suggestions to some of you personally. This book ties together our journeys in France as a cohesive tour de France. Most of this book comprises of fresh writing but to make the tour flow I have included relevant excerpts from my four book French Travel Series. If you are unfamiliar with those books, I hope you will go on to enjoy the full story of our experiences in French regions such as Provence, ...

Involuntarily single. That's the true story of where Catherine Tidd finds herself just three weeks after turning 31. Widowed with three children under six years old, a rusty resume, no fix-it skills, and no clue how to live life as a widow, Catherine can't help but be a little exasperated with her dead husband for leaving her to deal with life on her own. Catherine's now in charge of her life in a way she never wanted to be, in a way that would have most of us reeling and numb. But she soon realizes that when you call the shots, you can make pedicures one of the stages of grief....

Alford L. McMichael served his country in the United States Marine Corps for more than 36 years and was the first sergeant major to serve as the sergeant major to the Allied Supreme Commander of NATO. In this indispensable guide, McMichael shares life lessons that may be employed by everyone from military personnel to corporate CEOs.

This is the true story behind Wall Street legend Richard Dennis, his disciples, the Turtles, and the trading techniques that made them millionaires. What happens when ordinary people are taught a system to make extraordinary money? Richard Dennis made a fortune on Wall Street by investing according to a few simple rules.

Living in Oklahoma with her maternal grandfather, Mary gets a new name and a new life. But she's haunted by the past: by the baby girls she's sure will come looking for her someday, by the mother she left behind, by the father who left her. Mary is a college student when her sisters start to get back in touch. With each subsequent reunion, her family becomes closer to whole again.

First came parents with the good sense to flee Europe in 1940 and the good fortune to reach the land of freedom. Their daughter, Ruth, grew up in the shadow of genocide - but in tandem with the birth of Israel, which remained her lodestar. She learned that although Jewishness is biologically transmitted, democracy is not, and both require intensive, intelligent transmission through education in each and every generation.

WRITING A MEMOIR ISN’T FOR THE FAINT OF HEART It’s for the brave souls willing to yank skeletons out of closets, dodge flying monkeys, and march straight into the dark forest of family secrets—no breadcrumb trail, no map, just guts and a pen. A Memoir by Any Other Name is Still Your Story And guess what? You’re the only credible witness. Framing Your Memoir Through the Fairytale Lens is the magic potion you've been searching for—a fresh, imaginative guide that transforms memoir writing from overwhelming to empowering. Why Do Memoir Writers Get Stuck? Three reasons, my dear: You ...

Judy Batalion grew up in a house filled with endless piles of junk and layers of crumbs and dust; suffocated by tuna fish cans, old papers and magazines, swivel chairs, tea bags, clocks, cameras, printers, VHS tapes, ballpoint pens - obsessively gathered and stored by her hoarder mother. The first chance she had, she escaped the clutter to create a new identity - one made of order, regimen, and clean white walls. Until, one day, she found herself enmeshed in life's biggest chaos: motherhood.

Being “shook” is more than a rap lyric for Charlamagne; it’s his mission to overcome. While it may seem like he is ahead of the game and should have nothing to worry about, he is still plagued by anxieties - fear of being weak; fear of being a bad dad; fear of being a worse husband; and, ultimately, fear of failure. Shook One chronicles his journey to beat back those fears and empowers you to no longer be held back from your potential.

Using the written word as her witness statement, Jessica Willis Fisher tells a lacerating story of finding her voice after two decades of silence and an unforgettable story of risk and faith.

Terry Crews spent decades cultivating his bodybuilder physique and bravado. On the outside, he seemed invincible: he escaped his abusive father, went pro in the NFL, and broke into the glamorous world of Hollywood. But his fixation with appearing outwardly tough eventually turned into an exhausting performance in which repressing his emotions let them get the better of him—leading him into addiction and threatening the most important relationships in his life. Now Crews is sharing the raw, never-before-told story of his quest to find the true meaning of toughness.