Introducing Sonia Marsh

I met face to face with Sonia Marsh for the first time yesterday after a long virtual friendship and a lot of win-win networking.

She is the author of the newly released memoir Freeways to Flip-Flops (available at Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle, as well as Barnes and Noble) and the Gutsy Living blog. I posted my gutsy story there in June, and I’m pleased to say, I won for the gutsiest story of the month. Please go over to Gutsy Living to receive a special gift. Just scroll down and look for the red starfish.

So Sonia and I talked nonstop – mostly about how to go about the business of selling a book. We shared websites, conference information, how to get on panel discussions, what organizations we belong to. I urged her to join our Greater Los Angeles Writers Society. Although Sonia lives in Orange County, GLAWS has members who come to meetings and events all the way from Arizona.

Yesterday’s highlight was meeting with one of the proprietors of my local indie bookstore: Pages in Manhattan Beach. Pages: A Bookstore held a wonderfully successful launch event for my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, in May 2011, and now Sonia will also have a book signing and reading there as well. 

Please look for more information about Sonia here at Choices. She’ll be my guest in September answering questions about her book, and I’ll post a review just as soon as I finish it.

Her topic – living on a tropical island for a year with her husband and three boys – is very reminiscent of the 19 months my family lived on a tiny island in the South Pacific back in the mid 1970s. 

Blatant Bragging

Really I don't do this very often, but I couldn't help it today.


Mentions of my memoir Leaving the Hall Light On or me have occurred in each of the last three days. And they are all good. 


On Saturday I found out that the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society Literary Landscapes magazine is now available. And an excerpt from my memoir is there. Here is the link and a picture of the cover. Please take a look. The GLAWS writers are a very talented bunch.  We write in all genres.

On Sunday Marty Tousley, creator of the Grief Healing website, sent me a Facebook message that she had finished her read of Leaving the Hall Light On and liked it well enough to post it on her Pinterest board called Books Worth Reading and on her list of books for adults on her websites's Grief Healing Books resource. Here's what Marty had to say:

"A mother's brutally honest and heartfelt account of living through her son's bipolar disorder and surviving his tragic death by suicide. This is a powerful story, told with amazing openness and truth. A must-read for anyone seeking to better understand and appreciate the enormous challenges of chronic mental illness and its devastating effects on a family."

And bright and early this morning Sonia Marsh founder of the Gutsy Living site, posted My Gutsy Story on her blog. She'll start the voting for the four June stories submitted in June on June 28. Please go over there, read the entries, and vote. Voting stays open until July 11. I hope you'll vote for mine.