Starting Over ~ The Pink Ribbon Sisterhood

THE BABY HAS A NAME!!   Oops– THE MEMOIR HAS A TITLE!!

It took longer to decide on a title than it did to birth this baby. And I’m not kidding. There were times I thought this work would forever be referred to as The Memoir. But I’m very happy to announce  that HOPEFULLY EVER AFTER: Breast Cancer, Life and Me will be released on October 1st, appropriately at the start of Breast Cancer Awareness month. I certainly hope the book will raise awareness not only of the disease but of what choices women now have to combat it.

So how did this book come about? Why did I write it? Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I’m a writer with fourteen novels behind me. My natural instinct is to take pen to paper or put my fingers on the keyboard and figure stuff out by writing. Two bouts of breast cancer is a lot to figure out.

IT’S ALL IN THE FAMILY–

If you shake a family tree hard enough, you might find Uncle Joe, the bootlegger during Prohibition. Or Aunt Hattie, the one who ran away with the traveling salesman. Or even cousin Elmore, who became a U.S. senator. Take a minute to think about your family. Is it not full of characters and stories? From the humorous to the tragic, people create their own stories simply by making choices and living with them.

In my family tree, you’ll find ten siblings who chose to immigrate from Poland to the United States at the turn of the last century. In their search for a better life, they brought with them their love of family, hopes for an opportunity to thrive, and a bunch of BRCA1 genes about which they knew nothing. The last item was certainly not a legacy they would have wanted to bequeath.

I’m in the sassy wig sitting with Jean Brashear at a Ninc conference. The straightest hair do I’ve ever had!

My grandmother was the oldest of the six young women and four young men who landed in Ellis Island a hundred years ago. They were a close knit family and started out living near each other in New York City. Soon, they formed a family society with monthly meetings which became annual events as time passed. But because of these annual gatherings, I got to know many second and third cousins who didn’t live near to me.

So when I found out that my cousin Pearl had cancer, I knew who she was even though she was part of my dad’s generation. And when I heard that my cousin Shirley from New Jersey had cancer, I knew who she was, too–a beautiful young woman, a kindergarten teacher who left two small children and a loving husband. And then her brother got cancer, too.  My cousin Blanche fought four different cancers. My family visited the cemetery too many times.

That ‘s when we acknowledged that “cancer ran in our family.”  But there was no pattern. Some of my stricken cousins had been born to the sisters, some were daughters of the brothers. If we had known then what we know now…  But “then” was the 1960’s and 70’s and 80’s. What seems odd to me even now is that all of the original ten lived out natural lifespans. My own grandmother also died of cancer in 1963 at the age of 76. But she had neither breast nor ovarian cancer.

In recent years, there have been other cousins and of course, my own two battles with the disease. So I wrote a book to satisfy my own curiosity. My need to know why cancer “ran in my family.” Frankly, it’s a damn good reason to write a book.

CONFRONTING HEREDITARY BREAST AND OVARIAN CANCER  is another book that’s important to me. This is a terrific reference book, clearly written and broken down into easily identifiable sections. It’s primary author is Sue Friedman, DVM who founded the non-profit organization Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered aka FORCE.  I’ve written about FORCE in the blog several times before because it’s the only non-profit organization in America that focuses exclusively on hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. You can check them out at www.facingourrisk.org.

Because of my need to know, I researched my family and current achievements in medicine. Because of my need to share what I’ve learned in a fun way, I wrote HOPEFULLY EVER AFTER: Breast Cancer, Life and Me.  I hope you’ll look for it when it’s released.

FUN STUFF!!! Congratulations to the winner of the June contest: Laney aka Elaine.  Full disclosure – because Laney doesn’t own an eReader and lives in Canada, she chose to receive several of my Superroumance books (paperbacks) instead of the offered prize. As far as I’m concerned, the winner is the boss, and I’m happy to oblige. (The dollar value was the same).

NEW CONTEST!! For July, I’m giving away two books from a new group of choices by authors from On Fire Fiction. You might burn yourself–some of these are hot, hot, hot. But some are milder. Your choice of two plus a $25 gift card to Amazon or BN.