We just received our 30th 5 star review (out of 41 total on Amazon.com).  I am truly humbled every time I read one of these great reviews. As an author, it is incredibly rewarding to read such wonderful words. Thank you to each and every person that takes the time to leave a well thought out review!

“I’ve given five stars for one of the bravest memoirs I’ve ever read. Courage comes in many forms. Writing and publishing a book about childhood abuse, particularly sexual abuse from a parent must have been one of the hardest things for this author to do. Thank goodness for people who can write about such deeply personal and hurtful relationships with twisted parents, who instead of nurturing and loving a child choose to inflict their selfish perverted desires on them. I cried for this little boy who couldn’t feel safe in his own room or home. There is no doubt that this well written account will have helped other readers who have suffered in a similar way but may believe that they are the only ones; unique in their experiences. As readers we are drawn into this very moving account and have to read on hoping for respite and a positive outcome for the author. Without giving too much away, the author does forge a successful life for himself, but there are difficulties and hardships along the way.”

I am giving away a signed paperback copy of My Father’s Prostitute: Story of a Stolen Childhood this coming Friday, the 20th. All you have to do is join my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/journeytobpd, then share and like the flash giveaway post.  That’s it!

A while back while doing an interview for the LA Times about the issue with pedophiles in the Boy Scouts, I had the opportunity to review a lot of documentation about my father. One of the things I noted was that in 1983, one of the mothers of one of the scouts had filed a report with the local police department about my father molesting her son.

Recently, I reunited with a couple of the people I was in scouts with, and one of them told me it was his mother that made the report, but nothing ever came of it.  I had always wondered who that scout was, but never thought about it too much.  But I had always known my father had approached this boy (who was probably 11 or so at the time) but never put two and two together.

it is unfortunate that the police did nothing.  I was 15 at the time and really not sure how much it would have changed my life.  Well, that’s not true.  Had they come and arrested my father it would have changed things a lot.  But whether it would have been for the better I couldn’t really say.  I would guess ‘probably’, but I guess we never know what the overall impact would have been for things that could have happened in the past.  I DO believe it would have changed my sisters life for the better, and I think would have changed this boys life most definitely (he felt nobody believed him and that had a profound impact on his life as it would anybody).  But for me?  It’s an interesting question.

Not one I choose to dwell on though – after all, we can’t change the past, we can only shape our future.  But it is interesting to think about…

2014 seems to have been a great year for the authors of the Facebook group We Love Memoirs.  Many of us won awards throughout the year (although technically, I’m not sure if I won an “award” yet.. the email I received said “You’ve won an award”, but I am only a finalist for the 2015 awards.  To me, that’s not winning but I’ve included myself on the list anyway).  Regardless, here are some awesome memoirs you should check out in 2015!

Susan Joyce
The Lullaby Illusion: A Journey of Awakening
GOLD – 2014 Readers Favorite – Non-Fiction Travel
Honorable Mention – 2015 Stargazer Literary Prizes

My Father’s Prostitute: Story of a Stolen Childhood is now available on Kindle Unlimited. If you are a member, you can now borrow and read the book for free.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ILDQLB0

A week or so ago I figured I would take the plunge and enter another contest. Rather than a general memoir category though, this particular contest is for “life changing books” so I thought maybe My Father’s Prostitute would do ok. Well as it turns out, we were selected for the short list for the 2015 awards in the Mind, Body and Spirit category! It looks like they pick a few finalists each month for any of the 6 categories they have, and so far My Father’s Prostitute is the only finalist in its category. Which doesn’t mean much since there are still 10 months to go 😛

Check this space in 2015 and I’ll let you know how it turns out!

So we didn’t win the cover wars contest.  That’s ok – perhaps I’ll try again in another month or so. But in the meantime, I have a couple of other guest spots coming up on various blogs, AND I have been asked to help moderate the Facebook Group We Love Memoirs.  If you enjoy reading different types of memoirs, please do check us out at https://www.facebook.com/groups/welovememoirs/ – while geared towards the readers, there are (as of the other day) 90 authors that participate as well, with a different author featured every Sunday, and a different reader gets the spotlight every Monday!  It’s been called “the friendliest place on Facebook” but I don’t agree – I think it’s quite possibly the friendliest place on the Internet!  Check us out!

OK, so one of the things I do as an author to try and get my book in front of people is sign up for sites that seem like they will give a decent return for the money.  There are a TON of sites out there that promise you the moon in exchange for your hard earned marketing dollars, but which ones are any good?  It seems to be hit or miss really.  However, over at authorshout.com I purchased their site submission package the other day.  I’ll be honest and tell you I haven’t seen any sales as a result, but I did unexpectedly get entered into their weekly Cover Wars.  How it works is they offer up 5 book covers and people vote for their favorite (you can vote once per day – hint hint).  The book with the most votes by Sunday at 9PM (not sure of the time zone) gets featured as “Book of the Week”.  What does that mean?  I have no idea!  What I do know is that My Father’s Prostitute: Story of a Stolen Childhood has been selected as one of those 5 books for this week, and I would really love it if you would take the time to visit http://authorshout.com/cover-wars/ and click on my cover. 

Thanks a million!

-Steve

Ran across this interesting article this morning on how childhood trauma and neglect harms the brain on a physical level.  It’s not an overly technical article (i.e. doesn’t go into detail about the hormonal response to toxic stress), but still gives a pretty good overview into what happens.

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/06/trauma-abuse-brain-matters