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At the current time, there are 16 finished books by Herstory writers. Some of the writers have elected to self-publish under the Herstory imprint, while others have chosen not to publish their work but have donated their completed manuscripts to the Herstory archives at Stony Brook University. Still others are actively seeking publishers.
One book, written by a former member of our Southampton group, was picked up by a commercial publisher. When Stacy Quarty first came to Herstory and asked if she could write a handbook for pregnant women, we weren’t sure it would fit into our memoir-writing mission. However, she was able to use our workshops to recreate a week-to-week diary of her very particular experiences during a first pregnancy when she didn’t have a friend with whom to share her often unspeakable feelings, bodily reactions and fears. She bravely wrote Frankly Pregnant – the book she would have liked to have read while she was expecting – giving voice to the pregnancy moments rarely spoken about by a sister or girlfriend or mother, which was subsequently published by St. Martin’s Press. http://www.franklypregnant.com/
Radical Descent by Linda Coleman
This memoirby longtime Herstory member and facilitator Linda Coleman tells of her transit through idealism and dogma amidst the violent revolutionary underground of the early 1970s.
Stepping Off the Edge of the World by Tina Curran
A tale about smuggling hashish and smoking opium, searching for nirvana, and a pregnancy and birth in a strange land. Tina Curran writes of a young woman running from a working class childhood in Baltimore to a life on the road in India.
Red Medicine by Pat Gorman
An American woman sits alone, strapped to a chair on the tarmac of a tiny airport in the deep night of a Mexican desert. She cannot walk or move; she watches as the lights go out and everyone leaves, staring down the long dirt road waiting for the Shaman’s sons to pick her up. This is the story, a memoir mystery, of searching for a cure to the sudden deadly onset of a rare genetic blood disease, brought on by a bout of Salmonella and beyond this, the mystery of who she is, uncovering parts of herself that have been hidden away since her father’s death long ago. Her search leads her to discover the nature of her illness, coming from her Native American father’s side, in which the red blood cells, carrying the harmless Indian Antigen, are attacked and killed by the white in an ironic recap of history. She seeks out a Native American doctor, going to live with the Shaman who strips her room of all possessions, books, pictures and even her clock, leaving only her memories to sort through in the extreme desert heat. Her past comes to life at the kitchen table of her childhood, with her father’s combo coffee and stories of his life on the rosebud Reservation; how he got his name; the deeds that earned him the eagle feathers of his headdress; and his attempts to imbue in his six children the traditions of his endangered species by teaching them the forbidden Lakota rituals and dances behind the tall hedges of their backyard in Queens. And in the end, as the Shaman’s treatments in the present pull her back from the precipice of danger and death, she begins to accept the hidden and forgotten part of herself, the Indian side, and find a way to make peace between the red and white in her heated blood.
Friends of the Abyss by Pat Gorman
A poignant, funny-- and sometimes nightmarish-- journey through serious illness and the challenge of living with a “death sentence” and of making a life at the edge of the abyss. Pat’s many years of working with “terminal” patients as an acupuncturist during the initial AIDS crisis, and in early hospice situations meant living through difficult and deep experiences; but then her world turned over. As she faces the same challenges herself, she finds that living through them is different from observing them. In a series of stories of high tragedy, low comedy, death-day parties and surprising miracles based on unreasonable hope, we accompany Pat and her friends and patients on an exploration of the final adventure of life.
Featured Actress by Peg Murray
Stars come and go, but a professional actress moves from one show to another for life. After 17 years of Broadway productions and 22 years in television, Tony award-winning actress Peg Murray writes of what it’s really like, living the profession day to day.
Untitled by Marsha Benoff
This memoir by longtime Herstory member Marsha Benoff is told entirely in the voice of the child and through the overheard voices of her mentally ill mother and the equally unreliable voice of her angry older sister. The young Marsha is able to escape the restrictions of her mother’s madness by connecting with the outside world through books and later with teachers and friends.
Childhood is a Relative Experience by Lonnie Mathis
The first book by Herstory faciliator Lonnie Mathis opens with a walk and a peek into a window that changed her life – the moment her lost childhood memories began to resurface – and takes the reader back into the world, the heart, the body, mind and soul of the little girl living in trauma.
From the Shores of the River Denial by Lonnie Mathis
Lonnie’s second bookopens only days later, locked away in a psychiatric ward and locked inside her own silence – “My journey into, through and up out of crazy…” as Lonnie puts it – offering the reader an intimate look into the breakdown and rebuilding of a life.
The Last Off Spring by Janessa Rick
In Janessa Rick’s coming-of-age memoir taking place in the 1970s following on the heels of the free love generation and post Roe v Wade, a young woman must make a difficult choice when first love and the reality of growing up collide.
- “I See Him Walking Away,” by Tina Curran, appeared in the March/April 2008 issue of The Rambler.
- Several chapters of Muriel Weyl’s new book, Love Song at the End of the Day: A Journey Into Alzehimer’s comprised the lead article in Volume 8, No 1, of a special issue of The International Journal of Social Research and Practice, focusing on dementia (published by the University of Manchester, UK). To read the excerpts published in this journal and Muriel’s introduction, click here.
- Guest Word: East Hampton Star “Red Medicine”: an excerpt from Pat Gorman’s book of the same name
- Healing the Past, Present and Future excerpted from Pat Gorman’s Friends of the Abyss in Meridian Times, 2006, Journal of the Acupuncture Society of NY
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