It was a busy and productive summer for two of our bloggers, bloggers. Katherine Mayfield and Pat Leuchtman, two women of a certain age, ventured into the world of self-publishing, lived to tell the tale and are now out SELLING THEIR BOOKS. So you should buy them. Click the icon to take you to Amazon.

Katherine Mayfield's The Box of Daughter, now an Amazon Kindle, but soon to be published in paperback, tells the story of the author’s upbringing by emotionally abusive parents in a fundamentalist community in the Midwest. The book describes the author’s mid-life process of coming to terms with her abuse, ricocheting through a jarring seven-year voyage of caregiving for her parents in their 80s and 90s; and finally reaching for the freedom to create a life of her own. The Box of Daughter offers a message of hope that survivors of emotional abuse can overcome the trauma of the past, find peace and comfort, heal their wounds, and finally learn to love who they are.

The Box of Daughter is availalbe in the Kindle store on Amazon (click the icon above to take you there), and will soon be available as a PDF e-book on the author's website. A print version will be published in the fall. 

Katherine, who lives in Maine, is the author of two books on the acting business, Smart Actors, Foolish Choices, and Acting A to Z. She recently won an Honorable Mention award for her short story, The Last Visit, in the Warren Adler Short Story Contest. She has been published in Dance Teacher Now magazine, Dance Spirit magazine, The Significato Journal, Sasee magazine, The Women's Times, The Greenfield Recorder, and on fiftyshift.com. For more information, visit her website. 

Commonweeder Pat Leuchtman draws on her decades of rose-growing and country living for her sublime collection of essays, The Roses at the End of the Road. Pat, the longtime garden columnist for The Recorder of Greenfield, is a western Mass. neighbor and dear friend who has written a lovely book.

I'm particularly happy about this because Pat and I have spent many hours at our respective kitchen tables talking about writing and publishing, wringing our hands about different editors, magazines going in and out of business, and whether there's any place left for us in the publishing world. 

With this self-published book (via Lulu), Pat answers the question with an emphatic "YES!" 

She's a pleasure to know and inspiration to read. You can buy the book through her site. 

Pat and Katherine show us that you don't need a big publisher to get your story out. If you've got the goods and something to say, do some homework and get it out there. Hope you'll support them in their efforts. And let's hear from you about yours. 

                                                                        --B.J. Roche