Book Title: ‘Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate; Holidays, Special Occasions and Other Times Our Celebrations Get Out of Hand by Dorothy Rosby Category: Adult Non-Fiction (18+) , 258 pages Genre: Humorous Essay Publisher: Unhinged Press Release date: November 2022 Content Rating: G – appropriate for general audience as defined above
Book Description:
Christmas comes but once a year; chaos never ends! Happy Halloween, merry Christmas and joyful Lumpy Rug Day. We didn’t make that up. Lumpy Rug Day is celebrated every May 3, though “celebrated” might be too strong a word. It’s the American way to create a celebration for everything, then turn it into a chore or worse, a nightmare. ’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate is a collection of humorous essays about holidays, special occasions and other times our celebrations make us feel not-so-celebratory. It’s understanding for those who think Christmas form letters can be honest—or they can be interesting. And it’s empathy for anyone who’s ever gotten poison ivy during Nude Recreation Week or eaten all their Halloween candy and had to hand out instant oatmeal packets to their trick-or-treaters.
Dorothy Rosby is a syndicated humor columnist and the author of four books of humorous essays. She’s the 2022 global winner of the Erma Bombeck Writers Competition, sponsored in part by the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop. She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota, 20 miles from Mount Rushmore, something she’s very proud of though she’s not on it—yet.
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The Literary Lobbyist will be awarding one $25 and one $50 Amazon or B/N GC to randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Award-winning freelance journalist Javacia Harris Bowser is convinced that writing is a superpower. She sees her life as proof of it since writing has helped her navigate marriage, crisis of faith and body image issues. It also helped her to beat cancer.
As a Black woman from the South, Javacia has used the written word to explore issues of gender and race as well as religion. Find Your Way Back is a collection of essays that demonstrate how Javacia has used writing to achieve some of her wildest dreams such as being a public speaker, having her own column, and being her own boss. The book also explores how writing, self-love, and faith helped her overcome her worst nightmare: a cancer diagnosis in 2020. Javacia’s goal is to show readers how writing can transform their lives as well. The book includes prompts throughout to help readers start their own writing journey.
This book is for the woman who has wanted to write since she was a girl but struggles to find the time or the courage to put her words on paper. Find Your Way Back, shows that instead of putting writing on the back burner when life gets turned upside down, we should turn to it to help life make sense again.
Read an Excerpt
– from I’m Feeling Lucky – and Enraged
When it comes to health care, I’ve always been lucky. My lupus diagnosis in 2008 didn’t come after spending years visiting doctor after doctor, searching for answers to questions of chronic pain. I mentioned my fatigue, achy joints, vitiligo spots, and bouts of Raynaud’s disease to my primary care physician at the time as casually as someone rattling off a grocery list. She looked at me and said, “We need to test you for lupus.”
Years later, in a new state with a new doctor, I once again had a proactive primary care doc who urged me to get a mammogram, even though I was in my thirties. Breast cancer is often diagnosed in its later stages for women under forty, which means the survival rate is lower and the recurrence rate is higher. And while Black women and white women get breast cancer at about the same rate, Black women are more likely to be diagnosed before age 45 and, regardless of age, Black women die from breast cancer at a higher rate than white women.
Even when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age thirty-eight, I still felt lucky. I felt lucky that I had insurance that covered my treatment. I felt lucky that whenever I said I was in pain, my doctors and nurses believed me and scrambled to do something about it.
I felt lucky because in 2020, thirty million people were uninsured, and about half of those were people of color, according to The Brookings Institution, a research and public policy organization in Washington, DC. I felt lucky because both anecdotal evidence and published studies reveal that many medical professionals don’t take Black people’s pain seriously. According to a 2016 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, half the medical students surveyed had false beliefs such as “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s.” And trainees who believed that Black people are not as sensitive to pain as white people were less likely to treat Black people’s pain appropriately.
The staggering Black maternal mortality rates show that this type of implicit bias can be deadly. According to the CDC, each year about seven hundred people in the United States die during pregnancy or the year after. Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. I feel lucky, and I feel angry because I shouldn’t feel lucky! Affordable health care and being listened to and taken seriously by your doctors should be the norm for everyone.
I will use my privilege and my platform to try to do something about this. I’ve written stories about the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, which seeks to use legislation to address every aspect of the maternal health crisis in America. And I’ve written about the CDC’s Hear Her campaign, which seeks to improve communication between patients and their doctors and help to make healthcare providers, patients, and their families more aware of the warning signs of potentially life-threatening complications. I’ve had the chance to be a voice for other breast cancer patients of color in sessions with healthcare providers thanks to the work of organizations like the Tigerlily Foundation, which provides breast cancer education, awareness, advocacy and support for women ages 15 to 45, with a focus on women of color.
Even though I’m a writer, sometimes words aren’t enough. So, I will keep writing, but I also will keep fighting.
About the Author
Javacia Harris Bowser is an award-winning essayist and journalist and the founder of See Jane Write. A proud graduate of the journalism programs at the University of Alabama and the University of California at Berkeley, Javacia has written for USA Today, HerMoney.com, and Good Grit magazine. Named one of Birmingham’s Top 40 Under 40, she believes we can all write our way to the life of our dreams.
IG & Twitter @seejavaciawrite, #FYWBBookTour
IG @TheLiteraryLobbyist #TheLiteraryLobbyist @DawnMichellePR on Twitter
Purchase Links:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/37OtBJi
See Jane Write: https://seejanewritebham.com/product/findyourwayback/
After looking at the cover, I had to have This Morbid Life by Loren Rhoads. I didn’t care what it was about. How about you? Have you ever grabbed a book because of its cover, without checking out anything else about it?
I am sooo excited to have Loren Rhoads visiting today. She is going to share some of her thoughts and an excerpt….are you tempted yet?
1. What’s the most
inspiring part of where you live?
I feel blessed to live in the most diverse neighborhood in
San Francisco. It’s really great to get my coffee at the Filipino-Hawaiian
cafe, pick up a pork bun across the street, and stop off for a Salvadoran
pastry on the way home.
2. Where did the
idea for This Morbid Life come from?
The incredible artist Lynne Hansen was doing a challenge
last October where she created a new book cover every day. One day she made
this beautiful collage of an autopsied body with wildflowers and butterflies
inside its rib cage. I immediately fell in love with the artwork. I knew I had
to put together a book that would do the cover art justice.
3. How long did it
take you to write the book?
Almost everything was already written, but it took a while
to gather up all the essays, polish them up, and put everything together. I
started in January and the book came out in August.
4. Which “character”
has etched its way into your heart and why?
A lot of the essays are about my friend Jeff, so I dedicated
the book to him. We met the summer after I graduated, when I sublet a room in
the house where he lived. We eventually lived together again when my husband
and I moved into a lovely old Victorian in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood
and couldn’t afford the rent without a roommate. Jeff and I have known each
other for more than 30 years now. I remember when he came out, when he tested
positive for HIV, when his first husband died at home of AIDS. I was highly
entertained when his second husband got to This Morbid Life before Jeff had a
chance to read it. Jeff called to ask if there was anything too scandalous in
the book that he should worry about. I had to laugh at that.
5. What are you
working on now?
This Morbid Life is the first in a series called No Rest for the Morbid. The second book, Jet Lag & Other Blessings, will be a collection of my morbid travel essays: drinking all the absinthe I could find in Prague, encountering a rattlesnake in the Mojave, chasing alligators in the Louisiana bayou, flying over an active volcano in a helicopter, trying out Japanese love hotels, and basically stalking my morbid curiosity around the globe. That book will have a Lynne Hansen collage for its cover, too.
So many interesting essays. You kept me entertained, at times smiling and maybe even eliciting chuckle or two. I love the cover and find it as fascinating as the stories inside. No Rest For The Mordid sounds just as fascinating. Thanks so much for visiting and sharing your thoughts.
#1, Loren Rhoads was born in my hometown of Flint, Michigan. Gotta support another Michigander. #2, I couldn’t resist that cover.
Right out of the gate, I felt a kinship to Loren Rhoads. I was born and raised in Flint, Michigan, and this was like going home. I went to Mott Community College. I know Dort Highway very well, because I worked at the AC Plant, after being laid off from the Chevrolet Plant downtown Flint. I do love a walk down memory lane.
Loren Rhoads found inspiration from her personal experiences…you never know where it will come from. We need to be open to all our experiences.
HOLD ON TIGHT!f These essays are dark and gritty, filled with truth. Loren lays herself bare. This Morbid Life is an apt title for the book and is not for the feint of heart. She lets it all hang out and I loved every minute of it.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of This Morbid Life by Loren Rhoads.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
What others have called an obsession with death is really a desperate romance with life. Guided by curiosity, compassion, and a truly strange sense of humor, this particular morbid life is detailed through a death-positive collection of 45 confessional essays. Along the way, author Loren Rhoads takes prom pictures in a cemetery, spends a couple of days in a cadaver lab, eats bugs, survives the AIDS epidemic, chases ghosts, and publishes a little magazine called Morbid Curiosity.
Originally written for zines from Cyber-Psychos AOD to Zine World and online magazines from Gothic.Net to Scoutie Girl, these emotionally charged essays showcase the morbid curiosity and dark humor that transformed Rhoads into a leading voice of the curious and creepy.
EXCERPT
Burning Desire (an excerpt from the cremation essay)
At the
back of the warehouse stood the cremator itself. The Neptune Society used
British equipment, which was acclaimed as top of the line. A computer
controlled the temperature and length of burning time. The cremator had four doors,
two above and two below, so that bodies could be cremated simultaneously and
their ashes commingled. Before anyone could ask, Steve assured us that
California state law prohibited cremation of more than one body at a time, so
that ashes couldn’t get mixed by accident.
The
“ovens” themselves were built of fire-resistant brick. A metal rack slid out,
onto which the body was placed. Before the operator inserted a body, the
cremator would be preheated to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. As we toured the
building, the ambient temperature rapidly became torrid. The ovens were
warming. Apparently, at 1800 degrees, the inside of the oven glows red-hot.
Natural
gas was used for the heating process. A human body provides its own fuel and
will burn on its own at a high-enough temperature, so the cremator was
preheated, the body placed inside, and the gas switched off to prevent
overheating. Toward the end of the cremation, the gas was turned on again until
the bones became calcined and brittle.
Someone
asked Steve how they knew when a body was done. He recommended sticking it with
a fork. Sobering up, he added that, on average, it took between one and two
hours for a cremation at the Neptune Society, with an additional half hour for
the oven to cool down enough to remove the cremains. All bodies burned
differently, due to their levels of fat or moisture. Both cancer and AIDS
deplete the body’s fat reserves, so victims of those diseases had less fuel
value. Those bodies required more gas and a higher heat and might take longer
to reduce to ash.
The
different compositions of people also produced a variety of colors as the body
burned. Sometimes the flames turned green or blue, but generally they were
orange or red.
When the
cremation was complete, human remains were white and very brittle. Any other
discoloration implied that the cremation was unfinished. The bones might have
shrunk or twisted, but they were still quite recognizable. The cremains were
scooped out of the retort with a tool like a hoe. They were placed in a machine
with a drum like a clothes dryer that used heavy iron balls to pulverize the
remaining bones. The process was complete when the remains fit through a sieve.
I asked
if I could see real human ashes. With a shrug, Steve found a beige cardboard
box that was maybe five inches on a side. Inside a plastic wrapper, the
cremains looked like Quaker Oats and weighed as much as an old-fashioned
solid-body telephone. No one else in the tour group was interested in holding
the box. In fact, they all took a step back when I held the box out to them.
Continued in This Morbid Life
ABOUT LOREN RHOADS
Loren Rhoads is author of This Morbid Life, a morbid memoir, and Unsafe Words, the first full-length collection of her edgy, award-winning stories.
Alexa’s A Spy and Other Things To Be Ticked Off About: Humorous essays on the Hassles of our Time. When I saw this, I signed up for a tour and was supposed to review it, but I never got a copy and it slipped my mind to check on it until it was too late. I did finally find the copy the author had sent and I am so happy. It looks wonderful on my shelf.
I am in the mood for some fun and laughter, so I jumped on the chance to read Alexa’s A Spy by Dorothy Rosby, and I was not disappointed. Right away I felt an affinity towards her. I think we can be friends. She had me nodding my head, saying, “Yup. Yup. Been There Done That.” I smiled and laughed my way through some of my biggest pet peeves in this humorously written, fun, entertaining, collection of easy to read essays.
Maybe next time, I’ll think twice about flipping that driver off, exccept I already do. LOL
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Alexa’s A Spy by Dorothy Rosby.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About, Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time is part comical call to arms and part tongue-in-cheek tirade. It’s a good-natured rant about what brings us down during the day and keeps us up through the night, a collection of humorous essays that laugh at the nuisances of modern life: spammers and scammers, clutter and litter, bad manners and uncivil discourse. Too much stuff, too much noise, too much technology. Not enough patience, not enough kindness, not enough…chocolate?
ABOUT DOROTHY ROSBY
Dorothy Rosby is a syndicated humor columnist and author of two other books of humorous essays “I Used to Think I Was Not That Bad and Then I Got to Know Me Better” and “I Didn’t Know You Could Make Birthday Cake from Scratch, Parenting Blunders from Cradle to Empty Nest.” She’s working on her fourth and hoping to give it a shorter title—something like “Wow” or “Best Seller.” She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota, 20 miles from Mount Rushmore, something she’s very proud of even though she’s not on it. Yet.
Book Title: Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About, Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time by Dorothy Rosby Category: Adult Non-Fiction (18+) , 355 pages Genre: Humorous Essay Publisher: Unhinged Press Release date: April, 2020 Format available for review: print, mobi (for kindle), Gifted Kindle, and PDF Will send print books out: USA only Tour dates: August 10 to August 21, 2020 Content Rating: G – appropriate for general audience as defined above Book Description:
“Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About, Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time” is a low-brow look at high-minded living, a good-natured (mostly) rant about some of the challenges we face and some of the annoyances we deal with just because we’re alive and trying to thrive at this moment in history. Part comedic call to arms and part tongue-in-cheek tirade, “Alexa’s a Spy” goes after, among other things, spammers and scammers, clutter and litter, intrusive technology and uncivil discourse. Too much stuff, too much noise, too much to worry about. Not enough patience, not enough kindness, not enough…chocolate? As a syndicated humor columnist, Dorothy Rosby has been ranting for more than 20 years in publications across the West and Midwest. If her latest book doesn’t change the world, and most likely it won’t, we’ll at least go down the tubes together, knowing how really foolish we’re all being. Buy the Book: Amazon Add to Goodreads
Meet the Author:
Dorothy Rosby is a
syndicated humor columnist and author of two other books of humorous
essays “I Used to Think I Was Not That Bad and Then I Got to Know Me
Better” and “I Didn’t Know You Could Make Birthday Cake from Scratch,
Parenting Blunders from Cradle to Empty Nest.” She’s working on her
fourth and hoping to give it a shorter title—something like “Wow” or
“Best Seller.” She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota, 20 miles
from Mount Rushmore, something she’s very proud of even though she’s not
on it. Yet.
Today’s the day, all the excitement, all the anticipation, and now it’s finally here. And don’t forget to enter the mega giveaway, including a Kindle Fire, a $50 gift card, and a paperback library, at the end of this post!
Mosaics: A Collection of Independent Women will inspire and shock you with its multi-faceted look at the history and culture surrounding femininity. If gender is a construct, this anthology is the house it built. Look through its many rooms, some bright and airy, some terrifying- with monsters lurking in the shadows.
Mosaics Volume One features twenty self-identified female authors writing about Intersectionality, including women of color, and members of the disability, trans, and GLB/ GSD* (Gender and Sexual Diversities) communities. We have curated amazing short fiction, flash fiction, poetry, essays, and art. It’s personal, political, and a great read.
This collection includes Hugo Award Nominees, Tiptree Shortlists, Pushcart Prize Winners, USA Today Bestsellers, indie superstars and traditionally published talents alike. The anthology combines leading and new voices all proclaiming their identity as Women, and their ability to Roar.
