Tag Archives: book

Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month

08 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by in book, dementia, Fractured Memories, Uncategorized

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June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, and AlzAuthors is doing a raffle and book sale. As an AlzAuthors member, I’m offering my eBook, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too, on sale on Amazon for only $2.99 and my paperback book on my website for 20%. To get the 20% off, please use coupon code AlzAuthors2018 through my website. I’m also giving away a free eBook as part of their raffle. Check the AlzAuthors group out on their website to get in on the raffle and giveaway!

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Holla!

18 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in art, blog, book, death, dementia, Fractured Memories, humor, karma, kindness, painting, Uncategorized, writing

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Just got another great review of the book by a book blogger! Hollaaaaaa! Check it out on her blog, Brittany Reads, or read it below:

“Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love Too by Emily Page is a profoundly raw account of one family’s experience of caring for a father with frontotemporal dementia (FTD).  The story is told from the perspective of an adult daughter (the author) who is caring for her father along with her husband and her mother. The book has three parts.  This first part of the book is much like a traditional memoir, with the author’s experience recounted in a narrative.  The second part of the book reads a bit like a series of journal entries, raw and largely unedited recounts of caring for her father.  The author is an artist, and the third part of the book is a series of paintings she created that out of her caregiving experience.

The author’s love for her father is the greatest testament of this book.  Yes, the author becomes angry, emotionally frayed and anxiety-ridden in the seven years she cared for her father, and sometimes those emotions are even directed at her father.  But she never walks from the situation. Underneath all the difficult emotion was an abundantly present love of a daughter. The first chapter recounts her father’s life before his diagnosis. It’s a beautiful celebration of his life before dementia, including his sense of humor, his extraordinary passion for trains and music, and his time as a First Lieutenant in the Vietnam War.

Frontotemporal dementia is described as disease of a thousand goodbyes, like slowly losing the person you love in stages.  The author writes:

“When I got home, I, of course, got online and started researching the disease. What I saw was not good. Asshole internet, which so very often lies, refused to lie to me that night. The symptoms all matched: odd social behavior (disinhibition), inability to make changes or follow complicated instructions, heightened emotion, depression. Treatment was aimed at managing symptoms, not slowing or stopping the disease. There were no medications for that. Prognosis: death two to ten years after diagnosis, probably from pneumonia after aspirating food because of muscle failure. Two to ten years. Two to ten years. Two to ten years.”

This book leveled me.  I openly wept several times while reading it, especially in the second part of the book that read like a series of mostly unedited journal entries. I learned a great deal about the impact dementia has on a family. I also learned a great deal about how to advocate for someone living with this terrible disease.

The writing style is casual, and portions of the book read like an email from a friend.   It took a while for me to adjust to the casual style. I very much enoyed the artwork throughout the book.  The author uses images of elephants to portray herself, her father, and dementia itself because “an elephant never forgets” and “An elephant’s faithful 100 percent.”  The book ends with a list of songs, a playlist of the music that was mentioned throughout the book and has a special meaning or memory tied to the author and her father.  Fractures Memories is a must read for anyone who loves or cares for anyone living with dementia.”

And now, take a moment to read some of her other book reviews to find some other great new indie authors!!

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If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

Guest Post: Letters To Strabo

12 Friday May 2017

Posted by in book, Uncategorized, writing

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While I’m away, I asked some blogger friends to guest post for me. David Smith, from https://davidsmithauthor.blog/, was kind enough to agree to it. He’s got a new romantic, coming of age book that was recently released. Here’s a slightly tongue-in-cheek interview with the “store manager of Shakespeare and Company.” Check out his book!

David Smith guest blog:

Publicity Interview at Shakespeare and Company, a bookshop in Paris, with best-selling author Adam Finnegan Black for his latest novel Letters to Strabo

(with apologies to Before Sunset)

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Bookstore Manager: So Adam Black, welcome back to Shakespeare and Company, it’s been almost thirty years, hasn’t it?

Adam Black: It has indeed, but it’s great to be back. I see you still have the famous sign upstairs.

Manager:  “Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise?” Yes, of course. Now, tell me about the title of your latest novel Letters to Strabo, well my first question is: who is Strabo?

Adam: Strabo was a Greek scholar, writing at the time of Tiberius. He wrote the most comprehensive geography of the Roman world, but it was hardly used until translations in the fifteenth century. I came across it by accident when researching the opening of my book which is set in Olana, the amazing house of the American painter Frederick Church in the Catskills. His wife gave him a copy in 1879 and they named their house Olana after a location cited in the book.

Manager: And I see you replicated both Strabo’s chapter structure but also a similar journey Mark Twain made for his own travel book: The Innocents Abroad.

Adam: Yes, Twain was a friend of the Churches and a great travel writer too. There are some fascinating stories about him and his daughters that I’ve weaved into the plot.

Manager: And why did you call your protagonist Finn, exactly?

Adam: Well, my middle name’s Finnegan and it sort of has a Mark Twain link with Huckleberry Finn and to James Joyce too with Finnegan’s Wake. Strabo often referred to Homer and The Odyssey, which is the inspiration for Joyce’s other masterpiece Ulysses.

Manager: I see, so is it actually a travel book or a book about literature?

Adam: Well, partly both, but it’s mainly a romance, a sort of coming-of-age story. Finn falls for Eve, the archivist at Olana and they correspond throughout his journey round Europe. He has quite a lot of adventures along the way and relates them more or less faithfully to Eve. Her replies are the Letters to Strabo, in which she gradually reveals more about herself. Some of it increasingly disturbing I’m afraid, but you’ll have to read it to find out more about that. I don’t want to spoil it for you.

After some more background, the bookshop manager opens the floor up to questions

French Journalist 1: So do you consider the book to be autobiographical in any way?

Adam: Well I guess everything is autobiographical in a way. There are bits of me in there, but bits of a lot of other people I’ve met too.

French Journalist 1: And the section set here in Paris, in this very bookstore. Was that about you?

Adam: Well, I was here about the same time as Finn visited yes, but the events are of course completely fictional…

French journalist 2: So there was never a girl called Françoise that you met in Spain and travelled with by train to Paris?

Adam: Well, that’s not important; it’s just a story after all

French Journalist 1: Do you think they ever met again after they split up in Venice? In real life I mean?

Adam: No. I’m afraid that I don’t think they ever did, sorry would have done.

French Journalist 2: Maybe a subject for your next book?

Adam: Maybe.

At the back of the room he notices a face in the crowd, a beautiful woman wearing dark glasses. He leans over to the bookshop manager and whispers.

Adam: Look, I’m terribly sorry but I will have to leave now. I have a plane to catch and still have to shop for my wife.

Manager: No problem…Well thank you Adam, we really appreciate you coming here today. I hope you won’t leave it so long next time!

Adam gets up, talks to one or two admirers and then goes over to the woman waiting patiently.

Adam: Françoise?

The woman: I said you’d include me in one of your books one day.

Adam: And I said I wouldn’t ever do that

The woman: Menteur, I think you already did. Do you want to go for coffee somewhere?

Adam: I think I’m gonna miss that plane.

 

Author’s bio

David Smith is a British author who has now published four works under the Troubador imprint. His first novel Searching For Amber has been described as “A powerful and notably memorable debut” with a review describing it as “masterly and confident” and another as “Extraordinary, poetic, enchanting, sublime”. In addition to writing, he is currently CFO of a blue chip UK public company and lives near the South Coast in England with his wife and three teenage children.

https://www.davidsmithauthor.blog

Harass Your Local Librarian – But In a Really Nice Way

21 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in art, book, death, dementia, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, humor, karma, kindness, Uncategorized, writing

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It’s official! I shipped out over 200 copies of Fractured Memories today. It was a little bit of a fiasco at the post office, but after about an hour, everything was out of our hands and safely in the hands of the awesome postal workers. I had mixed emotions sending them off. It was kind of like kicking my babies out of the nest for them to fly on their own. Part of me wanted to keep them safe at home and part of me wanted to get all those boxes the hell out of my living room. By sending them out, I open myself up to critique, and I suck at handling criticism, even when it’s well-intended. I know bad reviews will come. Not everyone will like it, but all I can do now is cross my fingers and hope that a majority will. And maybe some of those people will like it enough that they’ll tell other people about it. Hint, hint. Like, maybe people will post it on their social media or have their book group read it or…

If you haven’t ordered it because you’re short on cash, consider requesting it from your local library. And ask your friends to request it, too. If librarians get enough requests, they’ll procure copies for their library. If you have ordered it because you’re not short on cash, first of all, congratulations on all the money! Second, consider requesting it from your local library anyway! Then, when you pick it up, thank them profusely and threaten to stuff them full of cookies until they’re sick if they don’t read it themselves. In other words, harass them, but be really nice about it. Librarians can really drive book sales. If they find a great book, they tell each other and recommend it to readers. Maybe tell them if they recommend it to people, a unicorn will visit them in the middle of the night and leave presents and money like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Or maybe don’t say that because we don’t want them to know how cray-cray you really are. Rein that shit in, people.

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

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This Review Tho’

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in art, blog, book, dementia, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, humor, karma, painting, Uncategorized

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My first order of books arrived today!! So now my living room looks like this:

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As I start to empty the boxes, the cats are becoming ecstatic. They’re convinced it’s Christmas day. So. Many. Boxes. They keep hopping from one to the next.

I’ll be spending the next couple days signing books and preparing to ship out all of the pre-ordered ones. It’s a daunting but exciting task. Especially because I don’t really have a “signature” yet. I mean, I don’t want to sign the way I’d sign a document. My signature on paintings takes too long. So now I have to come up with a new one. Perhaps I should just sign them all with Monet’s signature. That’s legal, right? Think it’d boost my sales? Or maybe I should sign them with Beyonce’s signature – Beyonce the singer, not Beyonce the giant metal chicken (that’s just chicken scratch).

Seriously though. I just got my second review – again from someone I don’t even know. For some reason not knowing them makes me even more giddy because they’re not obligated to say nice things about me. I might have to change my name to Giddy-on. And we can all refer to Fractured Memories as Giddy-on’s Bible. We can put one in every hotel room! Thank you to Book Nation by Jen for a fantastic review. It’s so generous! Click here to read it, then take some time to read some other reviews on her site and maybe find more great books to pick up!

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

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My First Book Review

13 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in art, book, dementia, Fractured Memories, Uncategorized

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I received my first review for Fractured Memories – and it’s from someone I don’t even know!! Woohoo! This makes it feel a little more real, somehow. Here is a link to her blog, which is an excellent resource full of great ideas for promoting happy and healthy environments for dementia patients. Rachael’s hands-on experience working with people with dementia gives her a depth of understanding that she conveys easily on her blog, so I highly recommend her site. Plus, you know, she said nice things about my book, so she should be rewarded with some visits and comments for that alone, lol. Anyway, check out her review!

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).book-cover-1

Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too

02 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in book, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, humor, Uncategorized

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Bear with me (or bare with me, if you’re feeling frisky) for a moment. I realized I should really do a post that doesn’t include me bragging about all the mistakes I’ve made thus far in the self-publishing process and just do a post about the book itself. So here’s the skinny:

I wrote a book.

Now here’s the fatty:

It’s called Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Basically, in 2009, my dad was diagnosed at the age of 65 with frontotemporal dementia, a form of dementia that strikes early and progresses more quickly than Alzheimer’s, and for which there is no treatment to slow the progression of the disease. Via art and on this blog, I began documenting my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious experiences.

As a professional artist, I’ve often turned to art as a self-prescribed therapy to help deal with life’s trials. This battle was no different. I utilized the elephant as a symbol for dementia (because an elephant never forgets), and incorporated sheet music into the paintings because my dad had been a musician. Eventually, I created 40 paintings that are included in the book. I began blogging about the range of issues that arose daily as the disease progressed, documenting everything from my own fear of getting dementia, to my dad’s transition to diapers (and the various places he opted to drop his drawers and just “go”), to combatting his compulsions like the need to “clean” the cars with steel wool, to an exploration of how he might have gotten the disease, to finding the right dementia care facility, to the best ways to make him giggle. I approached the disease from the fresh viewpoint of a younger caregiver.

As my readership here grew, so did the suggestions from you awesome people that I turn the blog into a book. After hearing too many horror stories about traditional publishing contracts, I decided to self-publish. I ran a fundraising campaign for my book and presold over 500 copies in less than a month.

My dad was my best friend. He embraced the ridiculous, looked for the good in people, and mentored and helped people whenever he could. Following his diagnosis, when people asked how he was doing, he’d answer, ‘Not bad for a demented guy.’ He looked for the light hiding amidst the pain. He chose to be very open about what he was going through in the hopes that it would help other people cope with their own diagnosis or a loved one’s diagnosis. Writing this book seemed a fitting way to honor that legacy.

I tried not to shy away from the ugly, raw emotion of life with dementia, but I also looked for the laughter where it could be found. Rest assured, you will love my father as much as I do when the book is done, and perhaps gain some insight about how to cope with your own loved one’s dementia or how to support a caregiver.

So now that you’re all frothing at the mouth in sweet, sweet, demented anticipation, here’s where you can get it:

  1. Buy a paperback copy directly from me at http://shop.emilypageart.com/. When you buy it from me, you save a couple bucks and I make more on each book. Win win. And if you tell me you’ve ordered and tell me a terrible joke on any of my posts on the blog after you’ve placed your order, I’ll sign your copy with a terrible joke in return. Win win terrible win.
  2. Buy a hardcover or paperback copy off of Amazon here.
  3. Buy an eBook here or here.

And when you’ve had a chance to read it, and if you like it, please consider leaving a good review on GoodReads or Amazon or the stall door at Starbucks (only on a piece of paper taped to the door, please don’t vandalize). And then make sure your local caregiver and/or dementia support groups know about it. If you read it and don’t like it, please lie.

Hearts and snugglehugs,

Emily

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Floating Elephant says, “Buymebuymebuymebuyme!”

A Story About Publishing a Story

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in book, dementia, Fractured Memories, Uncategorized, writing

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This is a story about writing and publishing a story. The first thing you should know is that it miiiiight have been a mistake to self-publish, but then again, it might not. I will say that I regret a couple things, and in hopes that I can save other authors some heartache, I’m going to share the mistakes I’ve made (so far, because let’s be honest, I’m going to make more of them).

Thing one that I regret: I opted to run a crowdfunding campaign through Publishizer instead of through Indiegogo or Kickstarter. I went into it not realizing that Publishizer would take a way bigger cut of the money I raised than those other sites do. I also thought that they would be hooking me up with legitimate publishers. Not the case. They just pitch your idea mostly to vanity publishers, who don’t really need to be pitched. Vanity publishers just want to get paid to publish your book. So not really helpful there, and certainly not worth an extra 20% of the money I raised. There were a couple of actual publishers that approached me, and perhaps I should have considered them more, but I’d heard some horror stories of authors making no money because of poorly managed book launches. And I’d done so well with pre-orders, I decided it was worth my time and effort to promote my own work and not rely on someone else. We’ll see how that works out soon.

Thing two that I regret: the publisher I chose. After speaking to several, I went with BookFuel. Bad idea. Right from the start things started to go wrong. They wouldn’t lay out the book the way I had envisioned. Every step took infinitely longer than it should have. I’d complete a step and send it off to my account manager, then wait a few weeks. I’d finally reach out to check on the status and each and every time it would have magically “just come back” from whatever department it had been in. What a coincidence. Every. Single. Time. And the kicker was that, when I received my sample copies (which were both really low quality), they had changed the formatting from the approved manuscript and eliminated the strike-throughs I’d included. So sentences that should have read something like, “He had raised me not to cry, though I was a giant ball of weepiness considerably less skilled at suppressing my tears,” now read, “He had raised me not to cry, though I was a giant ball of weepiness considerably less skilled at suppressing my tears.” When I alerted them to it, they wanted to charge me to fix it. And the blasted thing is still available on Amazon, even though I’ve asked them to take it down.

So yeah, not happy with BookFuel. I’m still in the process of negotiating with them to terminate our agreement, and hopefully that will be resolved soon. But it’s been an expensive lesson.

All of that being said, I found another company to print my book, and so far am pretty happy with them. With Blurb, I’ve had total control over the layout, the print quality is higher, and it costs me less per book when I buy in bulk. The only down side is that the print-on-demand books (i.e., through Amazon), are more expensive than they would have been through BookFuel so I earn less money when people purchase that way.

So now, without further ado, I’m pleased to announce that the book is finally available for purchase!! There are several ways you can buy:

  1. You can buy the paperback directly from me here. This is my most favoritestest way, because I make the most money on each book and you’ll save a few dollars.
  2. You can buy the hardcover and paperback versions on Amazon here. If you want a hardcover, this is currently your only option. Please note that the first version with the formatting errors is likely still going to show, so to get the right one, you’ll be looking for the one that offers the hardcover for $39.95 and the softcover for $29.95.
  3. You can buy the eBook here and here.

Once you’ve had a chance to read it, and if you liked it, pleeeeeease consider leaving a review on Amazon or GoodReads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34408526-fractured-memories?from_search=true)or your own blog/social media. And then tell everyone you know!

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It’s Almost Book Time, Y’All

05 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by in art, dementia, Fractured Memories, painting, Uncategorized

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Several people have expressed an interest in purchasing my new book as a holiday gift. It’s part coffee table art book and part memoir, and it’s full of ridiculousness and love. I’ve been pushing the publisher to get it out in time, but they’ve been frustratingly slow with everything and are anticipating a release date in January. So, I’m offering the book for PREORDER on my own website. When you order, I’ll email you a nice little mock-up of the cover for you to print out and put in a card. You can order your copy at http://shop.emilypageart.com/products/fractured-memories.

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Last Painting For the Book

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in art, Fractured Memories, gratitude, mental health, painting, Uncategorized

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I wasn’t happy with the final image I’d created for my book about my family’s journey through dementia. We’re in the print layout phase of Fractured Memories, and it was irking me that the final painting was one that didn’t really fit with the others. This is the last chance to make changes to the content of the book, so I had to act fast. So this weekend between classes, I knocked out a new one that I think is much more in keeping with the rest of the paintings being featured.

It was a good reminder for myself that each day will be different as we grieve. We’ll have days where we’re fine, where the joy of the world surrounds us, where we’re at peace with the journey we’ve been through. We embrace those days as they come. But there will be harder days, too: days where it doesn’t feel like we can hang on, where we ache with grief, where we shake our fists at the injustices we’ve been handed. And we accept those days as they come, too, knowing that they are necessary in order for us to process the pain and move forward. We need to acknowledge both sides in life and not feel guilty either when we let go of the pain for a bit or when we feel like we just can’t cope and the pain comes crashing down on us. Both are necessary if we are to truly live and love in this brief span of time we get on earth.

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We Laugh, We Cry 20″ x 16″ acrylic on canvas