The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X (left) by Les Payne (centre) and Tamara Payne (right), Liveright/ W. W. Norton & Company. Photos by Liveright/ W. W. Norton & Company, Newsday/J. Conrad Williams and Jamal K. Payne
A Pulitzer Prize and National Book Awards winner by journalist Les Payne and Tamara Payne with W. W. Norton & Company
Epic biography The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne is not just a life story but a lesson in history.
The Liveright/ W. W. Norton & Company publication was released last year and draws on hundreds of hours of interviews to present an unprecedented portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most politically relevant figures.
Renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Les Payne started the book in 1990 and was assisted by his daughter and principal researcher Tamara Payne.
However, after her father’s death in 2018, Tamara went on to finish his life’s work.
Memoir Twice a Daughter: A search for identity, family and belonging (centre) by Julie Ryan McGue (right), She Writes Press, and in earlier times (left). Photos Julie Ryan McGue, She Writes Press
Amazing story of how identical twins overcome closed adoption to find their birth parents
The fantastic twists and turns of a family quest inspired adoptee and identical twin Julie Ryan McGue to write her new memoir.
Twice a Daughter: A search for identity, family and belonging was published in May by She Writes Press and named 2021 Living Now Awards Gold Winner in Memoir – Female.
The book tells the story of how a medical issue prompted McGue and her sister to find their birth parents.
Indeed this became a five-year quest involving a search agency, private investigator, confidential intermediary, judge, an adoption agency, social worker and a genealogist.
Plus the sisters unearthed secrets, lies and family members who were literally right next door!
Forever Young Autobiographies recently caught up with McGue to find out more about sitting down to write her amazing story …
Memoir Love in Any Language (centre) by Evelyn Kohl LaTorre (right), She Writes Press, and wearing her wedding dress, 1966 (left). Photos Evelyn Kohl LaTorre, She Writes Press
What a 1960s Peace Corps volunteer to Peru knows about interracial relationships, love and marriage
Evelyn Kohl LaTorre’s new memoir Love in Any Language is a beautiful account about the trials and joys of blending two cultures.
The book is available from September 28 through She Writes Press and follows on from Evelyn’s popular life story Between Inca Walls.
Between Inca Walls is about her Peace Corps trip to Peru in the 1960s and falling in love with University student Antonio.
But in Love in Any Language Evelyn writes about finding out she is pregnant at age 23, marrying and moving home to California.
Here she learns to juggle full-time work and parenthood while Antonio learns English, finishes college and finds a job.
Forever Young Autobiographies recently caught up with Evelyn to find out more about sitting down to write this latest book plus her top tips for fellow life-story creators …
Memoir Blown Out of Proportion: Misadventures of a Glassblower in France (centre) by Rachel Caldecott (right) and with her family (left) when they first found their house in France. Photos: Rachel Caldecott
An amazing story of love, glassblowing and one family’s gutsy move to France
Building writing confidence through experience was key to Rachel Caldecott publishing her memoir Blown Out of Proportion: Misadventures of a Glassblower in France.
Certainly Caldecott never expected to end up writing, despite coming from a ‘booky’ family that included a writer mother and publisher father.
Indeed as a youngster she was interested in “too many things” and assumed something else was waiting for her.
But, despite these doubts, Caldecott’s Blown Out of Proportion was published in April.
And it tells the tale of moving, with her husband Chris and their two young children, from the United Kingdom to southern France.
Here they establish a glassblowing studio in an impoverished, sleepy town while braving scorpion-filled hovels, eccentric locals, corrupt politicians and traumatic legal battles.
Forever Young Autobiographies caught up with Caldecott to find out more about her book, the creative process and her suggestions for fellow writers.
Memoir The View From Breast Pocket Mountain (centre) by Karen Hill Anton (right), who is a skilled Japanese calligrapher (left). Photos: Karen Hill Anton
What The Japan Times columnist and skilled Japanese calligrapher knows about leading an adventurous life and living in Japan
Memoir writer Karen Hill Anton has certainly had one interesting life!
Firstly she grew up in New York City and hitch-hiked the length and breadth of Europe as a youngster in 1965.
Next, in 1974, she left the United States with her husband and daughter, 5, and drove a VW Beetle from Amsterdam to Afghanistan.
Indeed, the family was on the road, mostly camping, for a year before arriving in Japan.
“After our first year of studying yoga and martial arts under a tyrannical sensei, we settled in rural Japan,” Anton said.
“The province of Shizuoka, Japan’s premier green-tea growing region, is where I’ve made my home and raised my four bilingual-bicultural children.”
When All is Said and Done by Neale Daniher with Warwick Green, Pan Macmillan Australia. Portrait photo of Daniher, from FightMND.
ABIA winning biography by Ungarie’s Neale Daniher, with Warwick Green
This week I’m sharing an award-winner: When All is Said and Done by Neale Daniher with Warwick Green.
Certainly many know Daniher as an Australian Football League (AFL) legend – on and off the field.
But in 2013 he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and soon after co-founded FightMND, which has invested over $40 million into research and care initiatives.
Indeed this biography began as a letter by Daniher to the grandchildren he will never get to know.
