Patricia Baker lives in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, where she is a member of the Mountain Writers Coalition. She is a lifetime writer, but after teaching, consulting, and managing online communities, she now writes fulltime. The tribulations of Trish’s Burke County family during the American Revolution are reflected in her Freedom Tavern series. Her current projects include a time-travel series Top Shelf Tales (pre-teen to adult) and a new Sci-fi series, Martian Spring (young adults and up). Read about her past and ongoing work at Cooperspeak.com.

 – disability can enable

Not everything is at it first appears, and even more so is that true of people.

Vicki Easterly lives in Frankfort, Kentucky, where she is a member of the Bluegrass Writer’s Coalition. She has been writing since childhood. Her stories and memoirs have been published in several anthologies, including Daniel Boone Footsteps and UK Carnegie Press. Her first book, Miracles In The Mundane, was selected for the 2018 Kentucky Book Fair. She is currently a finalist in the Poetry Unites Kentucky essay competition. She has written several children’s books, which are ready for publication.

Doug Cantrell is Professor of History and Department Coordinator at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College in Elizabethtown, Kentucky where he has taught since 1987. He is the foremost expert on the topic of immigrants to the Appalachian coal fields and has written and spoken extensively on the topic. Professor Cantrell has authored, co-authored, contributed to, or edited 15 books. His two latest are Belles, Bourbon, Bluegrass, and Black Gold and The Making of an American.  He is currently working on a new book tentatively titled Aliens, Appalachians, and Americans.

Lisa Miracle Ballard lives in Huntersville, North Carolina. An active volunteer and advocate in her community, her heritage inspires her writing which has been shared in community publications, newspapers, schools and churches. She is currently working on a collection of essays, poetry, and short stories reflecting her Appalachian roots. Her story, “The Gift,” appeared in the 2018 Personal Story Publishing Project anthology Bearing Up.

– lessons in caring and caregiving

Across generations, learning to care and to give care both nurture and sustain.

Bill Donohue is a disability advocate living in Winston Salem. Most of his writing (ncwaiveractionteam.com) informs and prods legislative inertia for the 15,000 with Developmental Disabilities waiting a decade or more for services while potential caregivers struggle for a living wage. Bill’s first novel is a family’s saga with early onset dementia, chronicled in “The Kind of September,” Amazon (2013).

Author’s Talk

Bill Donohue

I write for therapy, much like journaling. It may be why my emails and Christmas letters are too long. Not electro-shock or heavy-duty therapy, just sharing—open, honest, often unloading, sometimes whimsically fun. I write obituaries and testimonials for aging buddies, notes to my unborn grandchildren, apologies, love letters, and even pissy letters to the editor. The Personal Story Publishing Project has become a surrogate therapist.

The “Trouble” I wrote for the project and the “6-minute Stories” podcast, however, is the most publicly personal of my writings. I’ve had a very interesting life, full of challenges. I’ve also been inspired and enormously grateful to the support systems that have emerged with colleagues, my wife certainly, and family across the world. I’m a lucky guy, therapies notwithstanding.

The Special Needs community is unique and one we all embrace or avoid throughout our lives. After all, we are only temporarily abled. We all enjoy “supported decision-making”—the new buzz word for a myriad of guardianship and parenting scenarios. It’s the “takes a village” thing to get us by. I deeply yearn—and even scream—for the day when our governments would become more of the supportive villages for those with special needs.

From Alzheimer’s and not-so-simple aging challenges to childhood mumps and pimpled teen-age angst, we learn to adjust—maybe flail out some—but adjust nonetheless to our challenges. I’m glad the therapists and editors of our lives give us license to blather on! - Bill Donohue