sharon emery
"It's Hard Being You: A Primer on Being Happy Anyway"
"Emery's book is a gift to the world."
Lori Nelson Spielman, New York Times bestselling author of "The Life List"
Find a local bookstore at indiebookshop.com
Order online at bookshop.org
About the book
Surviving your life – making your way through the good and bad – nudges you to make a record of it, to leave signposts for those who come after, especially your children.That was Sharon Emery's plan in writing It's Hard Being You, A Primer on Being Happy Anyway. She had survived perhaps the most heart-rending tragedy of all: the death of a child. But she also faced the less wrenching challenge of having a disability that was incurable, though not deadly (stuttering).Life is hard, but, so what?This memoir became Sharon's so what. She has recounted her challenges and achievements and given them meaning, found where they fit in her life. It's a process she considers vital to surviving what happens to you – telling the story.As the title suggests, Sharon writes with both hard-eyed realism and compassionate humor. Readers can listen in on what she wants her children to know about the losses and the limits that keep happening despite our desperate attempts to avoid them.Sharon's memoir resides in the everyday struggle to live as best we can, providing insights on how all who struggle – which is to say all of us – can survive well.
"From the gut-punch opening line, 'I am the mother of a dead child,' through gripping stories about her own disability and the deaths of her beloved siblings, Sharon Emery takes readers though a life’s journey of 'wrestling with losses and limits.' Her memoir packs more inspiration than heartbreak, a solace to anybody coping with life or death, which is all of us."– Ron Fournier, journalist, autism advocate, author of New York Times bestseller “Love that Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations”
Also available online at bookshop.org
Find a local bookstore at indiebookshop.com
About the author
Sharon Emery has always had a penchant for communicating, but speaking is a struggle because her voice includes a stutter. Sometimes a bad one. So writing, via journalism, became her voice. To succeed she knew she had to be better – a lot better – than her peers. She went after the credentials (a degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University) and the work experience (three part-time journalism jobs as an undergrad, for starters) to help ensure that.It took some doing, but Sharon ultimately forged a career in not only journalism, but public relations and teaching. She still stutters, and now considers it her accent.Luckily, Sharon's stutter taught her a lot about surviving life. And that skill was put to the test when she was faced with the deaths of her two younger siblings and her eldest daughter, Jessica, who had cognitive and neurological impairments and drowned at age 25.Sharon is a former chair of the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition Board and considers equal rights for people with disabilities one of the nation's unfulfilled promises. She and her husband John Schneider, a former newspaper columnist, live in Michigan – on twelve acres near Lansing and on Lake Huron near Cheboygan. This is her first book.It wasn't always easy being her, but Sharon is happy anyway.
Sharon's blog
Blog Highlights
THE POWERFUL PERSISTENCE OF MUSIC
Maybe for you, like me, music is the catalyst for a whole raft of memories: My inner freedom-fighter rising up to the sound of the “Les Miserables” touring company's entreaty, “Do You Hear the People Sing?”; my heart filling up to my throat when my husband harmonized... continue reading
BELIEVE IN THINGS WORTH BELIEVING IN
It's no secret or surprise that we are in the darkest days of the year. These long nights are the way of the universe, more regular than clockwork, which is merely our rudimentary attempt at quantifying the unknowable. Out of this darkness... continue reading
THE MAGIC OF MAKING IT THROUGH
Granted, I was overwrought from the beginning. Our son – whose voice is his job, and who had just lost his voice the night before – was worried about the upcoming show. This wasn't just any show. Anticipation was sky high... continue reading
RESISTING THE COMFORT OF THE KNOWN
One of the things that terrified me as I struggled to write my memoir was the realization that I had to give over my storytelling powers to what they call the “muse.”That's a whopper of a misnomer. The muse is often portrayed as some ethereal beauty gently summoning the artist forward. But it's really a call to enter the void, with no idea where you'll end up.And yet... continue reading