Born into a family with friction between parents, I never thought relationships could get much worse. When my parents divorced, father became estranged, then died by apparent suicide, memoirs by diverse voices opened my world and made me feel less alone. When I went through a sexual and gender identity crisis of my own, they helped me navigate the turmoil in my own life. I spent more than twenty-five years writing professionally for corporate and academic employers before writing biography and memoir became a coping skill.
Based on the story of my father’s life and death, Murder of an Uncommon Man follows Janet Berg as she investigates the life and death of Daniel, found dead in a field with a shotgun. Poring over scribbled notes and emails, police reports, and his well-worn Bible, she uncovers a life that ended in one of two ways. Janet’s memoir chronicles the life and death of her father, from his youth in 1950s Saskatchewan to unravelling the mystery of his death ten years afterwards.
Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir about her enigmatic father and his ambiguous death paralleled my experience in so many ways that it made me feel less alone in my grief and puzzlement. Where she grew up in a funeral home, my brother and I grew up around grass-strip airports. Where her father was closeted gay, ours was closeted trans, and where her father stepped backwards into the path of a truck, our father was found in a field. Being told in a graphic format and by a fellow lesbian with ties to the Midwest made it all the more stirring.
DISCOVER the BESTSELLING GRAPHIC MEMOIR behind the Olivier Award nominated musical.
'A sapphic graphic treat' The Times
A moving and darkly humorous family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Alison Bechdel's gothic drawings. If you liked Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis you'll love this.
Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high-school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and the family babysitter. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is…
Although we’ve never met in this sprawling metropolis, I feel a kinship with Ivan through their writing and history. We’re both from rural upbringings and have inhabited the gender spectrum in non-binary tomboyhood, and shared what could be called “same-sex attraction,” if we believed that it was as simple as some believe it to be. Ivan’s memoir gave me a mirror to see the struggle with gender from the assigned female-at-birth (AFAB) side as I was working towards the middle from the AMAB side. I hope to write one day with as much honesty and potent imagery.
Ivan Coyote is a celebrated storyteller and the author of ten previous books, including Gender Failure (with Rae Spoon) and One in Every Crowd, a collection for LGBT youth. Tomboy Survival Guide is a funny and moving memoir told in stories, in which Ivan recounts the pleasures and difficulties of growing up a tomboy in Canada’s Yukon, and how they learned to embrace their tomboy past while carving out a space for those of us who don’t fit neatly into boxes or identities or labels.
Ivan writes movingly about many firsts: the first time…
I read Jeanette’s memoir after reading her fictionalized parallel version, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. In reading the pair, I met the confluence of artistic license and memoir, adopting some of the lessons in drafting my first story. The triumph of education and hope after the pathos of childhood abandonment, abusive parenting, and homelessness helped me find my own strength amidst a mid-life crisis. Her ability to survive and write about Mrs. Winterson inspired me to write about my father’s abusive relationship and my own personal blemishes.
The shocking, heart-breaking - and often very funny - true story behind Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It was Jeanette's version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an adopted child, and the thwarted giantess Mrs Winterson. It was a cover story, a painful past written over and repainted. It was a story of survival.
This book is that story's the silent twin. It is full of hurt and humour and a fierce love of life. It is about the pursuit of happiness,…
I was writing my book when I saw the cover of this memoir on the library’s “new books” display. I wasn’t looking for another transition story but discovered that it crossed into “murder investigation” and was hooked. Lorimer’s life took him from the prairies to Vancouver, where he worked for the police department, and included a mid-life transition, with echoes to my arc. His connection to the horrific Pickton serial murder case between 2002 and 2007, involving missing, vulnerable women, makes his own story all the more poignant.
Inspiring and honest, this unique memoir of gender transition and coming-of-age proves it's never too late to find your true identity.
Since he was a small child, Lorimer Shenher knew something for certain: he was a boy. The problem was, he was growing up in a girl's body.
In this candid and thoughtful memoir, Shenher shares the story of his gender journey, from childhood gender dysphoria to teenage sexual experimentation to early-adult denial of his identity-and finally the acceptance that he is trans, culminating in gender reassignment surgery in his fifties. Along the way, he details his childhood in booming…
Preston and Spezi’s memoir helped me learn how to write from inside a murder investigation. I knew I needed to write about my father’s unusual death and my suspicions, but I didn’t have the tools to tackle it. The two journalists describe how they solved an infamous serial killer case only to become suspects themselves. Preston and Spezi drive their story with a momentum I tried to match in telling mine.
The Monster of Florence, which was shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Gold Dagger Award for Non Fiction in 2010, is a true account of brutal serial murder in idyllic Florence. After settling in Italy in 2000, Douglas Preston discovered that the olive grove in front of his family's new home had been the scene of one of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer who had never been found and was known only as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, met Italian journalist Mario Spezi, who had followed the case since the first murders in…
Adventures in the Radio Trade documents a life in radio, largely at Canada's public broadcaster. It's for people who love CBC Radio, those interested in the history of Canadian Broadcasting, and those who want to hear about close encounters with numerous luminaries such as Margaret Atwood, J. Michael Straczynski, Stuart McLean, Joni Mitchell, Peter Gzowski, and more. And it's for people who want to know how to make radio.
Crafted with gentle humour and thoughtfulness, this is more than just a glimpse into the internal workings of CBC Radio. It's also a prose ode to the people and shows that make CBC Radio great.
"In dozens of amiable, frequently humorous vignettes... Mahoney fondly recalls his career as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio technician in this memoir... amusing and highly informative." — Kirkus Reviews
"What a wonderful book! If you love CBC Radio, you'll love Adventures in the Radio Trade. Joe Mahoney's honest, wise, and funny stories from his three decades in broadcasting make for absolutely delightful reading! — Robert J. Sawyer, author of The Oppenheimer Alternative''
"No other book makes me love the CBC more." — Gary Dunford, Page Six *** Adventures in the Radio Trade documents a life in radio, largely at Canada's…
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