Tag: memoir

Featured Author: Hi-Dong Chai

A native of Seoul, Korea, Hi-Dong Chai was educated in the United States. He received a Ph.D. in engineering. After working for IBM for 19 years and subsequently teaching at San Jose State University for 15 years, he retired in 2002.

After retiring, as one who lost his loved ones through WWII under Japan and through the Korean War, he decided to share his life experiences through writing.

My Truest Hope was published in Guideposts magazine in 2012. He e-published Blossoms and Bayonets, a fictionalized version of his family under Japan co-authored with Jana McBurney-Lin, in 2012, and also Cindy and a Korean Boy and Shattered by the Wars in 2013.

His next project is to complete his American story: A 16 year old Korean boy comes to America in 1953. He struggles to support himself overcoming hunger and loneliness. He persists and receives a Ph.D. and establishes himself as an authority in his field. The message of the story is that in America if you are willing to give all you have, you can attain your dream.

More of his work can be found on his website and his Amazon author page. Continue reading “Featured Author: Hi-Dong Chai”

Featured Author: Julia Ibbotson

Julia Ibbotson is the award-winning author of The Old Rectory: Escape to a Country Kitchen, first published to acclaim in the USA and now re-launched with a brand-new cover by her new English publisher in the UK. Julia has been writing creatively all her life (unpublished!) but her day jobs to pay the mortgage have been as a school teacher and latterly a university academic, gaining her PhD at the age of 57. She delights in being a wife and mother to four, with four little grandchildren. She loves reading, gardening, growing food, cooking for family and friends and country life. Having published many academic texts and papers, she came late to actually publishing her creative writing, at the age of 60 plus, when she was persuaded to write the story of the renovation of her Victorian rectory in The Old Rectory. She has combined memoir, history, research, story and recipes in this first published book, which has won a number of international book festivals in the biography category, gained 5 star reviews on Amazon, and has been widely featured (along with her house) in the media. She has begun to delve into the world of blogging, facebook and now has her own website at www.juliaibbotson.com at which she also posts blogs regularly, about writing, life and her passions. Her new project is a trilogy of novels following the life story of a new character, Jess, through from fleeing to West Africa as a volunteer teacher/nurse in the 1960s to the millennium. The first of the series, Drumbeats, is due to be published later this year. You can find out more on her website and on her author page on Amazon. Her global internet book tours start soon! Continue reading “Featured Author: Julia Ibbotson”

Sneak Peek: Walks on the Margins

Today we have a sneak peek from the memoir by Kathy Brandt and Max Maddox, Walks on the Margins.

In Walks on the Margins, mother and son weave two narratives into a single powerful story of what it means to suffer from mental illness. Max takes readers into the abyss of mania, psychosis, and depression as Kathy narrates her struggle to help her son in a world beset by institutional failure. Each day they confront the unknowns of their lives as they maneuver a twisted path to recovery. A finalist for the Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction, Walks on the Margins is a fiercely candid story about the emotional turmoil and confusion of those who struggle with bipolar disorder.

Walks on the Margins is available through Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Here is an excerpt from Walks on the Margins… Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Walks on the Margins”

Book Brief: Here We Are and There We Go

Here We Are & There We Go: Teaching and Traveling With Kids in Tow
by Jill Dobbe
Genre: Travel Memoir
Word count: 60,000

Who says you can’t travel with kids? Dan and I find out we can do just that as we set off with our two very young kids, first to live and work on an island far out in the Pacific, then on to the continent of Africa with a few stops in between. Armed with strollers, diapers, and too much luggage, we travel to over twenty-five countries throughout a ten year span, while working together as international overseas educators.

After surviving typhoon Yuri, almost being mauled by lions, and, nearly being shot by a presidential guard, we happily endure all of the good times and bad, while living life to the fullest. A decade’s worth of experiences and lifelong memories remain with us, as we return to the U.S., now with two teenagers in tow, and begin to experience our very own version of reverse culture shock.

Here We Are & There We Go chronicles our family’s ten years of living and teaching in overseas schools in four different countries (Ghana, Singapore, Guam, Mexico) and the crazy, hilarious, and sometimes scary situations we found ourselves in. It is a travel memoir about what our family of four experienced while living with other cultures, learning new languages, and literally traveling around the world. It is a book that everyone can relate to even armchair travelers and others who are or aren’t considering traveling or living abroad with or without kids.

This book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Continue reading “Book Brief: Here We Are and There We Go”