True Stories IV

“True Stories” May Transform Your World

Here is a community of writers who will expand your worldview and open your mind to new perspectives, from cut-throat comic sales to letting the light in when grieving a lost mother; from failed marriages to caring for dogs, babies, gang members and ourselves.

Several intimate, candid “True Stories” contain the honesty that readers crave in memoir. They will raise your cheek color from Francie Allen’s “La rue Monsieur-le-Prince” in Paris to Heidi Fischbach’s “What Wanting Smells Like” in Chile. They will change your life and help you see coming of age in a whole new radiant light. Fischbach’s minute analysis of the guilt, shame, numbing and repression of desire required by certain religious dogma is transformative. You will see your own experience of repressing desire with new insight.

I was moved by several other global nomad stories, too. Kit Flynn, “From No Fixed Address,” grieves her father who led the family on an unrooted, moving life. She finds her roots at last in history. Noelle Davenport, “Suitcase In Hand, Heart On Sleeve,” finds her voice after an old friend becomes her new employer in Nigeria and turns into a bully far from home. Cami Ostman, “Pachamama Magic,” touches the mystical through a painter who advises her not to look at statues but the mountains of Bolivia for wisdom. Tori Peters, “Priscilla,” makes peace with a pestering pet monkey, released back into the wilds of Mali, and searches mysteries left by her late husband. ~Faith Eidse