Death & Grief, Parenting, Self-Help
Date Published: 06-20-2023
Publisher: Koehler Books
A week before Christmas 1951, Dr. Ralph Russell risked everything to voluntarily enter a locked federal drug-treatment facility known as a "narcotic farm."
Sixty-five years later, Dr. Russell's granddaughter Debbie suffers a debilitating crisis of identity when her father (Dr. Russell's oldest son), always her biggest fan, is accepted into hospice.
Debbie's investigation into her paternal lineage reveals family secrets and ignites her mother's volatile outbursts, propelling her into therapy.
When therapy fails her, the grandfather Debbie never knew saves her, and she collaborates with her dying father one last time to make her biggest dream come true.
Crossing Fifty-One pulls back the curtain on the internal struggles of midlife and provides a blueprint for redefining one's self beyond the constraints of addiction and dysfunctional family dynamics.
Guest Post
The Most Common Mistake in Memoir Writing
I believe there is a wonderful story within each of us. The challenge with writing memoir for publication is to present our stories in a way that readers will find relatable. My great-grandfather lived an incredibly interesting life and wrote 300 pages about it. As much as I wanted to have a connection to his adventures, I found myself struggling to maintain interest because at no time did he describe his emotions!
Was it simply because he wasn’t an emotional guy? As a record of his life as a pioneer and rancher in the late 1800s, his memoir is basically a listing of one dramatic event after another, all making for exhausting reading. In other words: an autobiography. When I was trying to find comparable titles for my own book, I read lots of memoir, some bestsellers, others less well-known. One thing I noticed when I was reading memoir full time, was how the good ones sucked me in, and the not-so-good ones left me feeling like I was merely observing the author’s life through a window.
“I did this…”
“Then I did that…”
“I went here…”
“Then I went there…”
The activities might, in and of themselves, be super interesting, but unless the reader can feel what the author is feeling, there’s no connection. No relatability.
I’ve not read Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, but I know readers felt like they could relate him, even though he was a member of the British Royal Family. How exactly did this happen? Prince Harry hired a ghostwriter, who highlighted his struggles in a family unit that was not supportive. Many people have endured dysfunction within their family units, and to be brought behind the scenes of one of the most famous families in the world is the primary highlight of this best-selling memoir.
I believe many people who want to write a memoir confuse memoir with autobiography. Again, unless you’re Prince Harry, or some other very interesting celebrity, your autobiography will not be of interest to the average reader. The key is to pick a portion of your life that changed you and describe the change. This is where the personal becomes universal, because most, if not all of us have experienced something that changed the trajectory of our lives.
Readers appreciate vulnerability far more than a list of interesting adventures or accomplishments. Successful memoir writers capture that vulnerability and share it with their readers in a way that reads like good fiction.
About the Author
Debbie Russell is a lawyer-turned writer. She spent twenty-five years as an Assistant County Attorney in Minneapolis, prosecuting numerous high-profile cases—specializing in those involving domestic and child abuse. At age fifty-five, Debbie took early retirement, giving up a full pension for the freedom of time. She now spends that precious time writing, restoring her property to native prairie and wetlands, and training her rambunctious retrievers.
Debbie’s first published article appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2001. After that small triumph, her writing focused primarily on legal briefs and memoranda, which were consigned to district court files. Debbie resumed creative writing in 2014 when she began her storytelling blog by sharing personal stories and professional experiences that touched her life in a significant way. Her top-ranked December 2021 article for Elephant Journal, an online journal that celebrates the mindful life is entitled “Getting the Most out of Therapy: Easier Said than Done,” and is partially based on events in her book.
Debbie's award-winning book, Crossing Fifty-One: Not Quite a Memoir, was released in June of 2023. In 2024, she became a regular contributor to the Minnesota Star Tribune, writing about criminal justice and adjacent issues.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
https://mybook.to/CrossingFiftyOneBook
1 comment:
Thanks for hosting me!
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