Congratulations to Jennie Miller Helderman on “As the Sycamore Grows: A Hidden Cabin, the Bible and a .38” being featured in Suzanne van Atten’s Bookshelf column in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The story entitled “Lucid House Strives to Give Unique Voices a Platform” uses Jennie’s journalistic tour de force that gives a harrowing insider’s view of domestic abuse to illustrate what our publishing philosophy is: Publish high-quality, important books written by authors with a meaningful message. Van Atten also highlighted Marilyn Kriete’s two memoirs, “Paradise Road” and the newly-released “The Box Must Be Empty: A Memoir of Complicated Grief, Spiritual Despair and Ultimate Healing,” because the former is our best-selling title thus far in our short existence, along with winning multiple awards, and her new book is equally as gripping as the first.
So many great things have been happening for our authors in the past few months. Annie McDonnell’s debut cross-genre memoir, “Annie’s Song: Dandelions, Dreams, and Dogs” received a glowing review in “The New York Journal of Books” by Diana Y. Paul. In addition to receiving 50+ endorsements by literary luminaries, her book hit #1 and was in the Top #5 in Amazon’s Hot New Releases in several categories, including Memoirs: Grief and Trauma, Biographies by Authors with Disabilities; Memoirs: Grief, Death and Bereavement; and Poetry: Death and Bereavement. She was also interviewed by Charles Clifford Brooks III, founder of The Southern Collective Experience, on episode 49 of Dante’s Old South Radio Show, which runs on NPR and is posted on Spotify. Jennie Helderman was featured in June on episode 50 of Dante’s Old South Radio Show.
Annie McDonnell’s essay entitled “When Your Rare Disease Suddenly Becomes Famous” appears on page 163 of the May 2023 issue of “The Blue Mountain Review,” the literary journal which Charles Clifford Brooks, author of four poetry books, founded and edits. Kevin Garrett penned “Roid Rage” (p. 79) about the evolution of his mixed media photography work using Polaroid manipulations and image transfers in the digital age.
Steve Spence’s essay “Why I Wrote ‘Money Plain and Simple’” appears on page 151. The revised and updated version as of March 2023 of his book, subtitled “What the Institutions and the Elite Don’t Want You to Know,” won the Book Excellence Awards in 2022 for Financial Book of the Year. The military veteran-turned-successful entrepreneur’s scarily accurate book offers a brief history of how we’ve gotten into the financial mess we are in with high inflation and the dollar devaluation and gives his practical opinions on moves you should make now. In that same issue, you will find Marilyn Kriete’s “A Grief Denied” on p. 159, which touches on the trauma that inspired both of her memoirs, “Paradise Road” and “The Box Must Be Empty.”
