Beth Fehlbaum's Blog, page 2

BIG FAT DISASTER is BADASS! Woohoo!

Wow, this is cool! Just received this tweet: "BIG FAT DISASTER by @bethfehlbaum is a Badass Best YA contemporary read for 2014! wp.me/p1Cr16-7oJ @Merit_Press ‪#‎BestOf2014‬" !!
Big Fat Disaster by Beth Fehlbaum || Published April 18th 2014 by Merit Press || ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ || Review

Synopsis: Insecure, shy, and way overweight, Colby hates the limelight as much as her pageant-pretty mom and sisters love it. It’s her life: Dad’s a superstar, running for office on a family values platform. Then suddenly, he ditches his marriage for a younger woman and gets caught stealing money from the campaign. Everyone hates Colby for finding out and blowing the whistle on him. From a mansion, they end up in a poor relative’s trailer, where her mom’s contempt swells right along with Colby’s supersized jeans. Then, a cruel video of Colby half-dressed, made by her cousin Ryan, finds its way onto the internet. Colby plans her own death. A tragic family accident intervenes, and Colby’s role in it seems to paint her as a hero, but she’s only a fraud. Finally, threatened with exposure, Colby must face facts about her selfish mother and her own shame. Harrowing and hopeful, proof that the truth that saves us can come with a fierce and terrible price, Big Fat Disaster is that rare thing, a story that is authentically new.

Why We Love It: Being a teenager is difficult. Being an obese teenager is horrible. When you are a teenager, all you want to do is to fit in with the crowd. It’s very difficult to do so with a weight problem. The story is told through Colby’s point of view and her voice is poignant. This is one sad little girl who is treated like a doormat by her mother. She is screaming for help and her mother is in serious denial. Her mother believes that Colby is the way she is on purpose and that all she needs to do is to stop eating. Big Fat Disaster was a fascinating read about a girl’s struggle with weight, body image issues, and self-worth. It’s not only about food, it’s about life, friendship, and relationships.

Beth Fehlbaum is a 2015-2016 Spirit of Texas Reading List Featured Author. Her daughter interviewed her about it. It didn't turn out quite like Beth thought it would...

BIG FAT DISASTER named to 2015-2016 Spirit of Texas Reading List!��

Wow! I'm so thrilled and honored that the Young Adult Round Table (YART) of the Texas Library Association (TLA) has named BIG FAT DISASTER to its 2015-2016 Spirit of Texas Reading List!

So...what does this mean? I'll quote from the (AWESOME!) email I received from The Spirit of Texas Reading List committee chair, Rebecca Denham:

"Congratulations! You have been selected as a featured author for the 2015-2016 Spirit of Texas Reading Program -- High School.

The Spirit of Texas Reading Program is a recommended reading list developed by public and school librarians from the Young Adult Round Table (YART) of the Texas Library Association. The purpose of the list is to encourage students in grades 9-12 to explore a variety of current, quality books from Texas Authors, develop critical reading skills, and to encourage greater interaction between Texas authors, Texas Librarians, and Texas school children. For more information and to see past programs, go to: http://www.txla.org/groups/SpiritofTXHighSchool

The committee has selected Big Fat Disaster as a focus for one of our ready-to-use library programs. You will be highlighted on the YART website and the programming will remain available on the YART website for librarians to use. Our committee will create three programs based on your novel.

To make this project more successful, we ask for some involvement from the author. We would like a short (1-2) minute welcome video from you in which you will introduce yourself to your readers. This video can be as formal or informal as you like; you can use a webcam, cell phone or whatever works for you. The video will be posted on our YouTube channel and linked from our webpage.

You will also be invited to participate in the 2016 Texas Library Association Conference in Houston, April 19-22, 2016, to be featured in the Spirit of Texas Reading Program session."

BIG FAT DISASTER named to 2015-2016 Spirit of Texas Reading List!

Wow! I'm so thrilled and honored that the Young Adult Round Table (YART) of the Texas Library Association (TLA) has named BIG FAT DISASTER to its 2015-2016 Spirit of Texas Reading List!

So...what does this mean? I'll quote from the (AWESOME!) email I received from The Spirit of Texas Reading List committee chair, Rebecca Denham:

"Congratulations! You have been selected as a featured author for the 2015-2016 Spirit of Texas Reading Program -- High School.

The Spirit of Texas Reading Program is a recommended reading list developed by public and school librarians from the Young Adult Round Table (YART) of the Texas Library Association. The purpose of the list is to encourage students in grades 9-12 to explore a variety of current, quality books from Texas Authors, develop critical reading skills, and to encourage greater interaction between Texas authors, Texas Librarians, and Texas school children. For more information and to see past programs, go to: http://www.txla.org/groups/SpiritofTXHighSchool

The committee has selected Big Fat Disaster as a focus for one of our ready-to-use library programs. You will be highlighted on the YART website and the programming will remain available on the YART website for librarians to use. Our committee will create three programs based on your novel.

To make this project more successful, we ask for some involvement from the author. We would like a short (1-2) minute welcome video from you in which you will introduce yourself to your readers. This video can be as formal or informal as you like; you can use a webcam, cell phone or whatever works for you. The video will be posted on our YouTube channel and linked from our webpage.

You will also be invited to participate in the 2016 Texas Library Association Conference in Houston, April 19-22, 2016, to be featured in the Spirit of Texas Reading Program session."

Happy Anniversary to Me!��

10 years ago today, I had my first therapy appointment with the psychologist who guided me through a six year journey of recovery from childhood sexual abuse.

I emerged from the experience a markedly different person.

To those who are victims, it is possible to move to "Survivor." It is hard, and it is scary, and it is exhilarating when one reaches milestones along the way. It's like standing on a mountaintop and being able to look back on the road traveled thus far. Even when there's still miles to go and  one slides off the path and gets stuck in the mud for a little while, the knowledge that others are on the journey with you is sustaining.

You are not alone. There is hope.

 Start here: RAINN

Happy Anniversary to Me!

10 years ago today, I had my first therapy appointment with the psychologist who guided me through a six year journey of recovery from childhood sexual abuse.

I emerged from the experience a markedly different person.

To those who are victims, it is possible to move to "Survivor." It is hard, and it is scary, and it is exhilarating when one reaches milestones along the way. It's like standing on a mountaintop and being able to look back on the road traveled thus far. Even when there's still miles to go and  one slides off the path and gets stuck in the mud for a little while, the knowledge that others are on the journey with you is sustaining.

You are not alone. There is hope.

 Start here: RAINN

STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES: the book that made me want to write

http://mrg.bz/WIaVby Spring, 2005. . .

I was wading into treacherous waters: the memories of a sexually abusive childhood that were threatening to swallow me up. In November, 2004, I’d entered therapy, set the first boundary I’d ever had with my stepfather, and subsequently had a mental breakdown when my mother chose my perpetrator over me. Again.

My life was a white-knuckled trek through each day. Know the crackling sound made by electricity or the way a transformer explodes in whiteness when it’s struck by lightning?

Yeah. Welcome to the inside of my head, circa the tail-end of 2004/most of 2005.

I was beginning to learn to feel my feelings instead of stuffing them down with copious amounts of sugar and fats, and part of my therapy was a daily workout on the treadmill: 45 minutes, uphill. I NEEDED to feel my strength. SOME PART of me needed to be strong.

My body was getting a hell of a workout, but it was still nowhere near the spinning my mind was doing. Imagine a truck with its back wheels stuck in a swamp, and the pedal’s to the metal as the driver tries to get out of it. My semi-unconscious hours: restless sleep infused with PTSD flashbacks, my mind did not rest. My awake hours—infused with rocket-powered anxiety and attempts to distract myself to hold off the electrified crazies—required constant distraction.

Walking uphill on a treadmill can be boring, and TV didn’t hit the “Soothe” button the way reading did. I had plowed through every book I was interested in reading, and the thought of my mind being free to roam set off my anxiety big-time, so I checked out one of my away-at-college daughter’s bookcases in her bedroom.

A book caught my eye: STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES, by Chris Crutcher. Sure, it was a book for teenagers, but the back cover copy intrigued me:

Sarah Byrnes and Eric have been friends for years. When they were children, his fat and her terrible scars made them both outcasts. Later, although swimming slimmed Eric, she stayed his closest friend.

Now Sarah Byrnes -- the smartest, toughest person Eric has ever known -- sits silent in a hospital. Eric must uncover the terrible secret she's hiding, before its dark currents pull them both under.

I started reading Page 1 before I even stepped onto the siderails of the treadmill. Popped the book onto the bookrack, and from that point on, I didn’t feel my workout that day. Chris Crutcher had me from the first words:

“My dad left when I still had a month to go in the darkroom…”

I had this thought: Oh, my God. Chris Crutcher was writing people like ME. There are books that tell stories like MINE.

It was MIND-BLOWING.

Around the end of 2005, my therapist suggested that I try writing a novel about my experiences. I’d been writing short stories and poems, all which were infused with the theme of

“OHMYGOD HOW COULDMYMOMDOTHISTOMEICANNOT POSSIBLYSURVIVETHISPAINANDI’MSOINCREDIBLYPISSEDTHATICOULD
CRAWLOUTOFMYSKINANDKILLSOMEONE.”

         By that point, I’d DEVOURED every book Chris Crutcher has ever written, and I modeled my own writing after his blunt fearless commitment to TRUTH.  It took about 4 months, from Nov. 2005 to February, 2006, to pull myself out of my own head enough to see the experience of recovery from childhood sexual abuse through the eyes of a teenage girl who WAS NOT ME.

         I wrote my first book in about four months. I was not sleeping anyway, and I wrote the book in the middle of the night, then I’d get ready, go to work, teach all day, come home and collapse for a few hours, then be awakened by this story that was telling itself to me.

         I didn’t even plan to have my first book, COURAGE IN PATIENCE, published, and the only person I shared it with was my therapist. He pronounced it “good stuff,” and knowing that he does not (a) bullshit or (b) give compliments lightly, I began to consider becoming an author.

         I found an agent.

         We found a publisher.

         COURAGE IN PATIENCE released in September, 2008.

         I was still in therapy, still writing as a way of processing what I was experiencing, and I wrote HOPE IN PATIENCE, the follow-up to COURAGE IN PATIENCE.

         About the same time, Kunati, Inc., the publisher of COURAGE IN PATIENCE, went bankrupt. 

         My agent shopped both books to a new publisher, and the publisher bought HOPE IN PATIENCE, with the intention of releasing COURAGE IN PATIENCE at some point if HOPE was successful.

        
HOPE IN PATIENCE, which released in October, 2010, was named a 2011 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers. (I’d say that’s pretty successful, wouldn’t you?).

         July, 2011, THE VERY SAME DAY I was readying the book-end to THE PATIENCE TRILOGY: the 3rd book, TRUTH IN PATIENCE, I received an email notification that the publisher, WestSide Books, was to be sold, and they were not taking on any new works.

         TRUTH IN PATIENCE concluded my journey through therapy, and it also concludes Ashley’s story because I was able to give her something I have never had: resolution with my mother. It's never been released.

         Now, I am standing on the cusp of a new beginning for THE PATIENCE TRILOGY, as my agent and I set out in early 2015 to find a new publisher for it. This coincides with the 10 year anniversary of me entering recovery. You have NO IDEA how meaningful this is to me. NO IDEA.

         I owe my writing career to Chris Crutcher’s timeless book, STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES. It let me know, at one of the loneliest times of my life, that I was not alone, and Chris Crutcher’s writing style infused in me a belief that a commitment to truth-telling is paramount to reaching others. If I had not been so fearful of the thoughts in my own head, I never would have pulled the book off my daughter’s shelf. Funny how life works that way, huh?
One of the highlights of my life--seriously--is meeting Chris Crutcher and getting to hang out with him at YAK FEST in Keller, Texas, a couple of years ago.

“It's a scary thing; moving on. Part of me wishes life were more predictable and part of me is excited that it's not. I think it's impossible to tell the good things from the bad things while they're happening.”
― Chris Crutcher, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Check out what Publisher's Weekly said about this AMAZING BOOK:

Such superlatives as "riveting" and "powerful" can only hint at the craftsmanship on display in this transcendent story of love, loyalty and courage. While probing such issues as friendship, free speech and moral values, Crutcher ( Chinese Handcuffs ; Stotan! ) tells a tale whose mordant humor, poignancy and suspense pack a breathtaking wallop. A social outcast in junior high due to his excessive weight, narrator Eric Calhoune found a kindred spirit in Sarah Byrnes, whose face and hands were hideously disfigured in a childhood accident. Now a senior and considerably slimmed down through competitive swimming (though still aptly called "Moby"), Eric remains fiercely devoted to his friend, whose caustic tongue is her only protection from life's inequities. When Sarah abruptly stops talking and is committed to a mental ward, Eric is compelled to take action to help her, but quickly finds that he is in over his head. He risks their friendship by breaking his vow of secrecy and enlisting others' aid--help that comes from such unlikely quarters as a former bully, Eric's swim coach and, most surprisingly, his mother's seemingly wimpy boyfriend. A subplot centering on a self-righteous teammate drives home the point that nothing is as it appears on the surface, and leads to Eric being caught between his menacing vice-principal and the even more malevolent Mr. Byrnes--with spine-tingling results. Superb plotting, extraordinary characters and crackling narrative make this novel one to be devoured in a single unforgettable sitting. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Buy STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
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Chapters

"Mama June" Could Be My Mother

Holly Lipschultz Thanks to the generosity of librarian and Chicago Now blogger, Holly Lipschultz, there is a series of blog posts running on Holly's blog, Running With a Bookcart, that I wrote about what how devastating it is to be a sexually abused child whose mother is deliberately indifferent to it by choosing to remain with the perpetrator.
It was inspired by the tragic situation of Anna Cardwell, whose mother, "Mama June" Shannon, the matriarch of the "Honey Boo-Boo" television show, is intimately involved with the man who sexually assaulted Anna when Anna was eight years old.

The series, which is running with a TRIGGER WARNING since it discusses childhood sexual abuse in some detail,  is running at noon Chicago time each day as follows:
10/30/14:
Mama June Could Be My Mother

10/31/14:
Moving to Crazy-Town

11/1/14:
When the Dam Breaks, Beth Will Fall

Dear D-FW/East Texas-Area Teen Services Librarian: You cannot beat this deal. Seriously. You can't.

Dear D-FW/East Texas-Area Teen Services Librarian,                          

            I am a veteran educator and author of Young Adult Contemporary Fiction. My most recent novel is Big Fat Disaster (Merit Press/F+W Media, April, 2014). I am interested in branching out into school visits as of Fall, 2015, and I need some practice. I am seeking libraries with active teen departments that I can visit at no charge for the purpose of honing my presentation and gathering endorsements from my hosts.

            My topic is “Writing FROM Real Life Without Writing YOUR Life,” and my intended audience is teens who are interested in the art of crafting fiction. Coupled with my skills as an author for teens, I will use my seventeen years of English-Language Arts teaching experience to help your patrons use what they know best—their own lives—to produce stories.

            My books, Courage in Patience, Hope in Patience, and Truth in Patience: The Patience Trilogy, were inspired by my recovery from childhood sexual abuse, and my most recent novel, Big Fat Disaster is borne from my struggles with an eating disorder.  That said, the books do not contain gratuitous violence, excessively graphic, disturbing details, nor are they autobiographical/non-fiction. They have a message of hope and the certainty of survival if one continues to seek truth and authenticity in one’s life. You may read chapter previews of all my books, here: http://bethfehlbaumbooks.com/index.html

              Would you be interested in a free writing workshop for your teen patrons? I am booking dates beginning Saturday, January 10, 2015, and continuing through spring and summer months. The program is two hours long, and I will be willing to stay an hour, post-program, to answer patrons’ questions. I will contact local media prior to my visit in order to assist your publicity efforts. In addition, I will coordinate a signing with a local bookstore so that your patrons may purchase my book the same day that I present a program to them. I am happy to designate your library program as a beneficiary of ten percent of my book sales that occur during the signing.

             I expect my calendar to fill up quickly, so please contact me soon: beth@bethfehlbaum.com

Sincerely,

Beth Fehlbaum

REVIEW LINKS

Big Fat Disaster : http://bethfehlbaumbooks.com/reviews.html
The Patience Trilogy : http://bethfehlbaumbooks.com/reviews1.html

I'm doing FREE author visits/writing workshops FOR A LIMITED TIME. DO NOT miss out!

Will you be my guinea pig? PLEASE? Hey, Texas High School Teachers/Librarians & Teen Librarians!
I'm booking FREE Writing Workshops/Author Visits starting June, 2015! I'm looking to get into doing school visits starting the 2015-2016 school year, and I need some guinea pigs-COUGH COUGH- I mean, host schools/libraries to practice on this coming summer. All I ask in return is 2-3 hours of your time, honest feedback, & endorsements if you are willing to give them. It's POSSIBLE I could do a few visits on Saturdays in May, 2015, too. If you would be interested in booking an event with me, PLEASE either comment below or email me at beth@bethfehlbaum.com THANKS!