Anniversaries and launches
Anniversaries and launches
Sept is the 1 year anniversary of "Accidental Mentors: Inspiring Stories of Women Who Shaped my Life by Just Being Themselves," and to top that off, "Living Into the Truth" is available for pre-sale!
What a journey it’s been! On May 24th, 2023, I published my first Accidental Mentors post here on Substack. It took me almost four months to publish all sixty-five stories, which I did at a blistering rate of 5-7 per week. On September 8th, 2023, I published the epilogue and soon after that began publishing stories that readers contributed about their accidental mentors.
I decided to celebrate this one-year anniversary, because I’m proud of the project, and because I wanted to let you know that I’m beginning the work to publish it in print and eBook formats. I anticipate that Accidental Mentors will be available for presale by January 1, 2025, and launching March 1.
For those of you who have joined Annette’s Wanderings more recently, let me give you a little background. Accidental Mentors: Inspirational Stories of Women Who Shaped My Life by Just Being Themselves is a micro-memoir series honoring women who made me who I am today. When I turned sixty-five and found myself engaging in the typical life reflection that happens when one reaches that arbitrary milestone, I found myself reflecting “on the people who have supported me, loved me, taught me, and challenged me throughout the years I’ve been on this planet.” and as I wrote then in my introduction, “Who and What Are Accidental Mentors”,
For reasons of choice and circumstance, most of these people have been women. From the very beginning of my life on 5/5/55, I’ve had the privilege of knowing incredible women who I’ve looked to for inspiration, hope, and love. Their strength, compassion, determination, and drive have compelled me to be better, to be more than I ever thought I could be.
So I started making a list and ultimately came up with a list of sixty-five women who have been there for me at various points throughout my life and taught me lessons that I needed to learn. For those of you who have already read and enjoyed these stories, thank you. For those of you who were not aware of them until now, this is for you.
My goal in sharing these stories and reflections is to remind us that we are but a collection of interactions, influences, and inspirations. My hope is that in reading these short pieces, you will be reminded of how important each interaction we have is—that just like a monarch butterfly laying eggs on a milkweed plant, what you leave behind is just as important as what you take with you.
The stories are organized by decades and framed by a short introduction to the decade describing what I was doing and what was going on in the world in the period in which the next group of women impacted me.
I started publishing the stories two days before I began a preventative course of chemo for a recent breast cancer (third time around with some form of cancer—but no worries, I’m cancer-free today!). I knew the summer ahead of me looked dim, and I figured I could turn that around emotionally if I had something to look forward to each day. These stories became a literal lifeline for me.
If I’ve piqued your interest, or if you were already interested and want to go back and catch up on the stories you missed, you can read them here:
Start reading from the beginning or pick and choose. My hope is that by reading these stories you’ll think about women who’ve influenced your life in positive ways. And that you’ll reach out and thank them, or if they’ve already left this planet, that you’ll pass on what they gave you to someone in your life. These are the gifts that matter.
Living Into the Truth is available for pre-sale!
I’m excited to announce that my latest book project, Living Into the Truth: A Daughter’s Journey of Discovery, is available for pre-sale!
You can submit a pre-order in either paperback and eBook versions to Amazon and it will be shipped on its official release date of November 1.
For those who prefer a more independently-minded source, it will soon be available through Bookshop.org and other online and physical bookstores. I’ll let you know when you can order it from there.
For those of you who are dying to know, here’s the back cover description:
It’s been a few years now since I've learned as much as is knowable about your secrets. In that time, I’ve come to realize that my pain is not as much from you as it is about you. It’s from knowing the freedom of living in the truth—a freedom you never afforded yourself. I wish I could give that to you. I wish I could let you know that I know...so you could know I forgive you for lying to me about who I am.
With these words from a letter to her deceased mother, Annette Marquis invites readers on a journey through her past, uncovering truths that challenge everything she thought she knew about her origins and herself. From the discovery of a sister who died of polio before she was born to confronting questions about her distinctive red hair, Marquis navigates the complexities of her Catholic upbringing and her adoption.
As she delves more deeply into her family’s secrets, Marquis realizes that living into the truth starts with being honest about who she is. Her journey from a confused teenager at a Catholic girls' boarding school to an openly lesbian adult parallels her quest to uncover her family's hidden past. DNA testing ultimately confirms suspicions about her parentage, forcing her to confront her parents’ deception.
Marquis shows that exposing the truth is only half the journey—figuring out what to do with what you've learned is the other half. This memoir is a testament to living openly and honestly, despite—or even because of—the lies you were told.
I hope you’ll consider purchasing a copy for yourself and for friends who you think might enjoy it.
There’s still time to win A WordsWomen Press T-shirt!
Survey closes October 31, 2024
If you haven’t already, please take a minute to respond to this brief survey. This will help me make well-informed publishing decisions as I go forward into this wild world of indie-publishing. Everyone who completes this survey will be entered into a drawing to win a free WordsWomen Press t-shirt (once they’re designed). Thanks for playing!
Here’s the link: WordsWomen Press Readers’ Reading Survey.
Thank you again and again for being part of my reading and writing community.
Happy end of September,
Annette
