April 16, 2023: “The Gathering Girl” goes out into the world.

Today is the day I announced my book to the world. Well, at least to my small corner of it. Back in 2018, when I was wrapping up the final summer residency of Ashland University’s MFA in Creative Writing program, I told the instructor and my fellow students that I wanted to publish a book by the time I was 50. I will turn 51 in 10 days. I just made it!

Seven years in the writing, this memoir is my attempt to make meaning of the cumulative and relatively quiet damage wrought by my parents’ divorce, my mother’s mental illness, and a childhood in which I was generally left to fend for myself.

My hope is that anyone who has experienced adverse childhood events or who lives with the residue of a dysfunctional family will find some solace in my story.