JUST ADDED--in case you're interested in info on Alysa reading from Stranger in My Skin in the Minneapolis and St Paul area:



Wednesday, September 6, 6:30 PM
Birchbark Books—Minneapolis
2115 West 21st Street


Thursday, September 7, 7 PM
Borders Books and Music—St. Paul
1390 University Ave W


Friday, September 8, 7 PM
Amazon Books—Minneapolis
4755 Chicago Ave. S







Hey Girl, I think it's about time to begin this... I was hoping your separate page would be done first, but that's another day or two off. (Keep watching... We're working on your MySpace authors page, too.) How are you feeling with this whole process? Remember to contact heather if you want to share with someone who knows what it's like to come out into the world with all your insides exposed. That's what I imagine it kinda feels like anyway.

I've already got one reading for you, at the biggest Borders here in the Twin Cities (Aug 7). I'm not so stressed about the Boston media and store readings, since you live there and we have more time. BTW, do you have someone there in Boston to be with you at readings and give emotional support? How hard do you think it will be? (We'll be doing some practicing here first, and I'm a pretty good support, so maybe it's good you're doing it here first?)

I have been acting like a mad woman in some huge kitchen, frantically chopping and tossing vegetables around, with lots of pots (cauldrons?) on the stove at once. But I am getting things done. Mailed more letters, press releases and books out to reviewers and store managers today. And this video for your book (it'll be ten minutes long) is just flowing outta me, choreographed (brilliantl,y, of course) to the second. If it just comes out half as good in final product as it is in my head, believe me, folk will be talking ! (And then all the friggin big boys in publishing will steal the idea and hire their big gun pros to start doing the same thing ... BUT it'll still be a controversial idea with YOUR book! Great PR!)

"We embrace controversy."

Alysa, where are you??

Did you get my email saying that I retardedly was walking around with your card from the rollodex (something I keep telling myself not to do, but then I'm so damn stubborn that I don't even listen to myself!) and now can't find it?

How are you doing??

It's weird cuz your book hasn't even come out yet but I'm already getting responses. Like, I gave a copy to my mother, who lives at a retirement place with pretty old people, and people would ask her about the book cuz of the cover and then show interest. The girl who does her hair, after hearing a real brief description of it, began confiding in her about her similar situations. And one of kali's friends saw the book (cuz I gave her a copy) and wanted one cuz she's got self-injury issues. These issues are so damn common, I keep getting floored over and over again, esp cuz of how people never talk about them, just keep them to themselves, alone in their pain...

This book will do so much good, hon! So, so much good for people. Kudos again for your courage in sharing your story. And please contact me!

I'm playing with the idea of rewriting my memoir, only this time it will be FUNNY! I'll keep the same basic format and write truthfully, but the tone will be different. It will be "Stranger in my skin - a comedy." What do you think?

I think something is making you feel angry and cynical... Am i right? (Nothing wrong with either in my opinion.)

Say, try clicking on an image of your book. Still gotta add the link directly to this forum/topic. Since I found your #, I'll try calling again tomorrow, OK?

You've got two readings so far here--

Sept 7--Borders Books in St. Paul
Sept 8--Amazon Books in Minneapolis

I'll get back to ya with more!

I have a better idea for the second book. I'm going to interview all the "characters" in the original one, then rewrite the story through their points of view.

Seriously, though, wouldn't that be an interesting project? Find out what story all the perps are telling? Probably the journalist in me coming out.

Do whatever diverts your (assumed) anxiety right now... Although personally, I don't think there'd be anything interesting in it since the whole world's mainstream story is from their point of view already. Now your POV is refreshing, and those few who've already read your book have said so.

I'm going crazy trying to get everything together, feeling the time crunch now for real...

i'll call, i promise! forgot yesterday, was in a bit of a ...uh... i don't even know what to call it .

I'm not so much angry as I am anxious and cynical. I'm sick of life, actually; sick to death of how HARD everything is. I mean, how difficult it is to have a simple human relationship, not to mention a complex human relationship.

Victims and survivors of abuse are often labeled as unable to trust. I don't agree with that. Personally, I think I am totally capable of trust, I just don't see any good reason to. On a logical level, I think everyone knows that trustworthy people exist (or at least one believes or hopes trustworthy people exist), but there's one thing I can't figure out right now: Why try? Why extend oneself? What's the point? What can I get out of a relationship - any relationship - that I can't get out of a good book or a movie or a conversation with Joe Schmoe on the subway?

The anxiety is completely to be expected under the circumstances, you know. (Just ask Heather.) I hope you did get some support going there cuz you are gonna need it, I'm sure.

Have you thought about any particular excerpts you might want to read? I've got some in mind, but I'll wait to see what you're thinking. When you're here, we can practice, too. (Just a good idea for public speaking.) I did get some tips together for you, will send them off when I get offline.

As for the trust/relationship ponderings... I think I know what you mean, that the trust involves so much risk, risk that leads not to abstract possibilities for you, but to things you already know from experience are not all that uncommon. And that you know are very dangerous to you. No, that's not a character flaw or something to be thinking that way!!



I think you really know at least some of the answer to that?? There are things you can't get from a book or movie or Joe Shmoe, which is why you were seeking relationship so desperately before, right? But that doesn't mean evryone should be in a relationship either, I think. That's an individual decision, after weighing the pros and cons--not a right or wrong situation.

And you know I can't speak from experience on this myself, having a vivid history of getting involved with sociopaths, but... I do still believe that love and trust are possible in romantic relationship--IF you've got two people who aren't hollowed out on the inside and who have the capacity and the desire to work at one and be real with each other, ya know? maybe it's as simple as knowing what you want and determining what you have??

We'll talk soon. My hands and head have been been too full, if you know what I mean...

I know this question will come up, probably over and over during the next few months, so I'm going to answer it now. People are already asking me why I wrote something so achingly personal and put it out for the world to judge and criticize. Why, when so much of it is behind me, would I choose to rehash it and put even some of the most intimate details of my pain into words and publish it?

The answer I am giving (first to my mother, and then to anyone else who asks) is that I wrote the book not to cause more pain or guilt. I've already felt enough of that. I wanted to publish my story for two reasons. The first may be selfish, but, as Anna Nalick sings in her song, Breathe (2am) "If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me." Regardless of the effects my book has on me and the people who are close to me, I had to put it on paper and release it, otherwise, it would have gnawed at me and gradually destroyed me. The world gave me the pain, and it should have some of the responsibility of carrying it. I can't bear the entire burden.

My second reason is a little bit harder to explain. I recently went to a doctor's office following a foot injury. The doctor, obviously unable to feel my pain for me, asked me to describe it using the following words (I was supposed to circle words that accurately reflected what I was feeling):

sharp

intense

burning

gnawing

cramping

nagging

soreness overall

stinging

shooting

dull

deep

superficial

throbbing

radiating

aching

excruciating

pins and needles

pinching

numb

nauseating

cutting

stabbing

penetrating

exhausting

Other (specify)

I almost laughed when I saw this list of words, because how many of them do I use in my book to describe emotional pain? Unfortunately, we are forced to communicate some of the most incommunicable feelings and experiences in words. This is what I tried to do with my book. Many of the readers will be like the foot doctor -- they will need adjectives describing the pain because they will have no content or comparison, no experience to help them understand. But, for a few of the readers, the book will communicate more. Like I wrote in my afterword, if the book finds its way into the hands of someone suffering like I did, the words will communicate a kinship, and that kinship can do more for the reader on some level than even the best therapy.

Wow, that is so goddamn beautiful!

Seriously, it made me just feel warm and shivery! I think that statement itself says something about the very core mission of this press, certainly of my own life.

And you know what? There are people about to die right now--right NOW--that those words of yours could save. Cuz the world tells us that any pain inside of us is basically our own fault and we "shouldn't" even have it. Why do people who've led more privileged and painless lives say and believe that BS? Cuz they can? Cuz it makes them feel beter about themselves? Cuz it means they don't have to look at pain or ugliness int he world and bear any responsiblity for it? Or do anything bout it?

Words can be incredible things, so empowering and paradigm-altering ! And you're a writer; OF COURSE that's what you're gonna do. Imagine the poor people who don't have any way for them to express and work thru this stuff, who just have to suck up the lies.

I so love that you can say that statement, girl! I so, so love it! When the hell in all of this did you get to that point anyway?? I'm quite serious.

I also think, alysa, that a lot of folk do not understand. Even some folk who have had to deal with serious pain try to ignore it, tuck it away. Of course, we know that doesn't really work. I think one thing people can't understand is the amount of courage it takes to really and truly face down your own demons. And that's the beginning of healing. (Sorry, but yeah, only the beginning...) We won't go anywhere as human beings without first doing that. What's unusual about you is that you have the courage to do this and also the unusual ability to communicate about it in such a way that others can comprehend.

Thank-you.

And any critics to come about your psychological process or actions/reactions or whatever... Screw 'em! There will always be assholes in the world, and i do think they've taken up enuf of your time already, don't you?

Oh, and that bit about your first reason being "selfish"?? That's just the BS you were conditioned with. Try not to give that/them any more of your serious time and energy also!

Loved the list of adjectives!! Could relate.



so, so true--like music also!

Hey, one owner of an online book review site said she had never before done this, but she mailed me her review prior to posting it. it is so beautiful that it made me actually cry, something no book review has ever done before! I'll send it on to you but can't post it or anything until they do it. They also want to do a piece on the press itself and an interview with you if you're up for it. (We gotta talk about the whole media bit soon, so you can be at least a little prepared for what may be coming??) Let me know your schedule these days so I know when you can pick up, OK?

Oh, and someone who used to be on my advisory board--she's also a good friend and a harsh critic of nearly everything--called me up to say that she got her copy of your book and was totally wowed by it! Coming from that woman, I can tell you it's high praise! Oh, and she also said that your book will def go national if there is anything right in the book world at all!

Got another reading for you in Minneapolis--Sept 6, at Birchbark Books, 6:30 PM. It's a store owend by Louis Erdrich, one of the top Native writers inthe country! READ something by her if you haven't yet and if you have time... This is DISTRACTION time now for you! But really, she's a great writer!

Why aren't you picking up your phone these days? Email or call, please, just wanna know how you're doing!

Girl, get ready for lots of questions that you never expected. Nothing can prepare you for what you're about to do. Good and bad will come out of it. You can be guaranteed of that. What do I suggest? Breathe. And laugh. Just laugh about it. That's what I did for the public. Also, I'm very good at never actually answering questions although I'll make you think that I have. Try it.

Thanks for the question, Gail. I don't think that point needed "getting to," if you know what I mean. Anyone who has ever felt that enormous void inside that disallows a person to feel whole in any sense of the word knows that the "journey to wholeness" is paved mostly with rejections from people and places you've petitioned for help.

I'm currently working with a 95-year-old woman fighting clinical depression, and while her psychologists tell her to act happy and to tell people that she is "doing better" or "feeling fine" (the goal is to say it enough to change her brain chemistry), this woman cannot do it. She's looking outside of herself for some sense of wholeness, and in the process, she's petitioning EVERYONE she comes in contact with for help. She passes a person in the hall, and she walks more slowly, turns her face downward, so as not to give the impression that she feels good. She wants people to know she's in emotional pain because in some warped way that I totally understand, she wants them to help her. What she doesn't remember or hasn't yet learned (though at 95, it's hard to believe that) is that no one really cares whether she feels good or bad. Even if they did care, they wouldn't have a clue what to do or say to help.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I searched the way this woman is searching. I sought out people who seemed to be whole or to have the sort of peace I desperately wanted, and I begged them for help. They usually turned up their noses and warned their children to keep a safe distance from me. So now that I'm stronger and I'm no longer chasing that elusive wholeness, I can posthumously and sarcastically give the pain back, hoping it finds its way into all those crevices where I was turned away when I needed help the most.