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July Backlist Spotlight: DAUGHTERS OF DIVORCE, Terry Gaspard and Tracy Clifford

This month, we shine a light on an excellent resource guide by Terry Gaspard, DAUGHTERS OF DIVORCE (Sourcebooks), which fosters healing from the trauma of the ruptured family and helps girls and women to foster healthy relationships. The book won the Silver Medal Independent Publisher’s Award and was Winner of the Best Book Award in “Self-Help: Relationships”

Over 40 percent of Americans ages eighteen to forty are children of divorce. Yet women with divorced parents are more than twice as likely than men to get divorced themselves and struggle in romantic relationships. In this powerful, uplifting guide, mother-daughter team Terry and Tracy draws on thirty years of clinical practice and interviews with over 320 daughters of divorce. It offers hope and practical advice that can help the millions of young girls and women affected by their parents’ break-up.

TERRY GASPARD, MSW, LICSW, is a licensed clinical social worker, researcher and acclaimed divorce expert with over thirty years of experience working with women, children of divorce, and their families. Her research has been published in The Journal of Divorce and Remarriage and she is a regular contributor to Huffington Post Divorce, DivorcedMoms.com and other outlets. Her writing has appeared on eharmony.com, TheDailyParent.com, and others.

Choosing a Literary Agent is a Lot Like Dating

It’s often said that it is harder to get literary representation than to get published. And it may be true! But as many of you know, I think it is essential for writers to be well represented. This ensures not only a better chance of getting published, but also provides a writer with a seasoned guide throughout the entire publishing process, indeed, throughout the life of a book.

Writers get understandably discouraged by the lack of response or negative response from agents to their queries. But one key reason for that is that you may not be targeting the right agents. I’m always amazed, for example, at the letters I receive from writers who have clearly not checked in advance to see if I am accepting queries for the category of project they are submitting. I don’t handle screenplays, picture books, or Westerns, for example. You can find information about me and the agency at this website or the following places:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/joelledelbourgoassoc)

The AALA (Association of American Literary Agents) website (aalitagents.org),

Linked In: ww.linkedin.com/in/joelledelbourgo/

Just as you have preferences in choosing a mate: you like tall men, or literate women, or someone athletic or who shares your passion for skydiving, so, too, your literary agent needs to be a fit–a fit in terms of having similar taste and interests, and also in style of conducting business. Once you have ascertained that an agent will be receptive to the kind of book you are writing, and if you are fortunate enough to enter into a conversation with that agent, you may want to ask: How do you see my book fitting into your list? How do you work with your clients? How might you approach selling my book? How do you like to communicate with your clients? Similar to the dreaded “first date” questions, the answers will not only be informative but also give you a feel for whether there is the right chemistry. Follow your gut. You may find eternal love and happiness or heartbreak, but it’s a start. Without taking a risk–a calculated one–nothing happens.

–Joelle Delbourgo

SEDUCED BY THE LIGHT is now available from Blackstone in audio!

Here’s a great review from Audiofile.

SEDUCED BY THE LIGHT The Mina Miller Edison Story

Alexandra Rimer, Read by Bernadette Dunne • Unabridged • JULY 2023

Blackstone Audio • Trade Ed.

Blackstone Audio • Library Ed.

Bernadette Dunne maintains the prim and proper formality of the Victorian era that influenced Mina Miller Edison, the second wife of the famous inventor, in this intriguing production. Raised by wealthy, influential parents, Mina was destined to marry an industrialist. Though she expected to marry her childhood love, she found herself swept away during a romantic courtship with the middle-aged Edison; he wanted her to manage his household and raise his three children from his first marriage. The frustration, tension, and loneliness of dealing with her workaholic husband during their 45-year marriage and raising five children is evident in Dunne’s performance. Another constant is Mina’s passion to protect Edison’s name and reputation, not only during their marriage, but also after his death. S.D.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

THE DANCING WOMAN, Elaine Orr

From the author of A Different Sun and Swimming Between Worlds, and Professor of Literature at NC State University comes a mesmerizing new novel. Set against the backdrop of Nigeria on the edge of civil war during the 1960s, a young epat woman artist, torn between two men, struggles to find her passion

and purpose. (Blair Publishing/World Rights, Fall 2024)

Audrey Bellezza at Words Bookstore in Maplewood

Meet the co-author of EMMA OF 83RD STREET (with Emily Harding)/Gallery Books, details here.

https://www.wordsbookstore.com/event/emma-of-83rd-street/

Celebrate Pride Month!

Michael Sadowski’s MEN I’VE NEVER BEEN was named one of the 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Books of All Time by Book Authority, Men I’ve Never Been recounts Michael Sadowski’s odyssey as a boy who shuns his own identity–and, ultimately, his sexual orientation–in order to become who he thinks he’s

supposed to be. It’s incredibly moving and beautifully written.

Michael Sadowski is a writer whose work ranges from memoir to fiction to research on youth development and education. His memoir, Men I’ve Never Been, was named one of the Best 100 Gay and Lesbian Books of All Time by bookauthority.org and was shortlisted for the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award for Nonfiction. His 2016 book Safe Is Not Enough was featured by NPR and was cited by GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings as “the most important book written on LGBTQ issues in education in my lifetime.”

MEN I’VE NEVER BEEN is available in hardcover, ebook and audio. (The audio cover is pictured here.)

CRISIS ON MOUNT HOOD, Christopher Van Tilburg MD

A mountain rescue doctor’s gripping memoir of life-saving rescues on the most-climbed glaciated peak in the world, woven with the 100-year history of America’s oldest mountain rescue team, the Crag Rats, highlighting how climate change, crowds, and technology are fueling a spike in search and rescue incidents, endangering the beauty of the high alpine wilderness. (Mountaineers Books/World English/Spring 2025)

THE MINIATURIST’S ASSISTANT, Katherine Scott Crawford

Pitched as Surviving Savannah meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, in which an art conservator in historic Charleston discovers a familiar face in a 200-year-old miniature portrait and must reconcile her complicated past with that of the men she loves across two different lifetimes, begging the question:

What does it mean to be a spirited, flawed, and fully-realized woman living as many lush, wild, and dangerous lives as she possibly can–in any century? (Regal House Publishing, World Rights, May 2025)

Seduced by the Light-The Mina Miller Edison Story by Alexandra Rimer

Seduced by the Light (Lyons Press, May, 2023) is the first and only biography of Mina Miller Edison, the wife of Thomas Edison, the woman who created and shaped the myth of one of the most seminal figures in America’s history. The Thomas Edison we think we know was essentially created by Mina Miller Edison. Exhaustively researched by Alexandra Rimer, an assistant editor at the Thomas Edison Papers at Rutgers University, this account draws on unprecedented access to Edison family diaries, memoirs, and letters to look below the surface of the Edison family during the Gilded Age from the little-known perspective of this female protagonist.

Following his first wife’s death, Thomas Edison went in search of the next mother to his children and chose a wealthy twenty-year-old socialite from Ohio who was nineteen years his junior. What Mina did not know at the time was that Edison was a terrible father, completely neglecting his children and, ultimately, Mina herself. Absorbed in his work, he only interacted with his family at dinner, and sometimes not even then. The result was a dysfunctional family overseen by a saintly matriarch who went to great lengths to protect Edison’s reputation as well as that of his wayward children.

“Alexandra Rimer’s biography of Thomas Edison’s second wife, Mina Miller Edison, offers important new insights into the inventor’s life. By exploring Mina’s own family relations, Rimer provides a richer understanding of the circumstances that led to their marriage and of the complicated family relationships of their own blended family. In addition, she offers a fascinating analysis of the important role Mina played in creating and perpetuating Edison’s public image.” –Paul B. Israel, Director and General Editor, Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers University

Karla Salinari’s new cookbook, ABUELA’S PLANT-BASED KITCHEN

Here are some images from the launch of Karla Salinari’s homage to her Puerto Rican, Dominican and Cuban family recipes, all made healthier in vegan versions that do not sacrifice flavor or texture.