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The Real Me
Tammy Campbell Brooks Author Interview
The Ghetto Blues is an autobiography of your life in the projects of San Antonio and how you overcame numerous obstacles. Why was this an important book for you to write?
My legacy is important to me and I want to share my story to inspire people. I want my children and future grandchildren to know the real me, my life story, and that no matter what life throws at you, you are to never succumb or play the victim role. No excuses.
I wrote the book for my family’s history; the saying that every time an old person dies, a history book dies with them.
I don’t want my history book to die with me.
What I liked most about this book was the honesty in the retelling. You left nothing out, good or bad. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
The hardest to write about, is by far, the suicide of my beloved mother. She was not only my mother, but my best friend and someone that I could talk to about anything. My mother always had my back and she loved all of her children, unconditionally.
The Ghetto Blues is dedicated to my mother and father.
When writing a biography it enables you reflect on life choices. Is there anything that you see differently now that you’ve written this book?
There’s a lot that I see differently as I reflect back on my life’s choices, but without the decisions that I made, there would be no Ghetto Blues.
My experiences taught me to remember the past but don’t let it define my present and future. I’ve learned from my choices and there’s no greater teacher in life than mistakes.
I felt like this book was about perseverance in the face of adversity. What do you hope readers take away from your book?
I hope that readers take away the fact that no matter what you go through in life, you are the director, producer, actor, and the entire cast of your life’s decisions. You are in control of your own life.
There are two choices, to give up or to never give up.
I hope that the Ghetto Blues inspire young children and people in general that are born into poverty, suffer mental, or physical abuse to never give up.
Author Links: Amazon | GoodReads
![The Ghetto Blues by [Brooks, Tammy Campbell ]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51OI1KQ7OtL.jpg)
My legacy is important to me. I want to leave a legacy that my children and grandchildren could be proud of. A legacy that would be a blueprint for future generations to tweak and make better.
I write this book for future generations to learn, grow, and inspire to be a better you. This book is the story of my life and based on true events. It’s about a young lady that struggled through her identity crisis and was raised in unstable environments and poverty.
A story about a life of tragedy, trepidation, but triumph. I never accepted the ideology of a victim. Instead, I embraced strength, resilience, and a warrior’s philosophy. I fit the perfect description of Tupac Shakur’s meaning of the saying, a rose that grew from the concrete. When the odds were stacked against me, I continued to grow mentally, physically, and spiritually.
I believe that you are only a victim when you have no choice; otherwise, you are an enabler. I had no choice being born into poverty, but I had a choice on whether to rise above my circumstances. My desire was to break the mental and physical chains plagued in our communities and instill new ones for me and my children.
My story goes out to all the people that suffered and survived, The Ghetto Blues. I hope to transform and inspire you to never give up on you.
Literary Titan Book Awards May 2018
The Literary Titan Book Awards are awarded to books that have astounded and amazed us with unique writing styles, vivid worlds, complex characters, and original ideas. These books deserve extraordinary praise and we are proud to acknowledge the hard work, dedication, and imagination of these talented authors.
Gold Award Winners
![Don't Call Me Chip by [O'Donnell, Neil]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Zea3EbnDL.jpg)
![A Game of Life by [Musewald, Anna]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51dwI6kQUmL.jpg)
![Descendent Darkness: Book Three: Redemption by [Macready, A.J.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41kHKJvy2DL._SY346_.jpg)
![Stillness of Time (Seeker of Time Book 2) by [Buckler, J.M.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/516apuT2byL._SY346_.jpg)
![Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries by [Anastasiou, Mel]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51wcHlgkxWL.jpg)
![My Name is Nelson: Pretty Much the Best Novel Ever by [Fairchild, Dylan]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Aq52qX2nL.jpg)
![Returning Souls by [Colombo, Ernestine B.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61GS7Ne-%2B3L.jpg)
![Traits and Emotions of a Salvageable Soul: A Conversation with a Touch of Class: Volume 1 by [Crawford, Keeshawn C.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61r9CxyA4tL._SY346_.jpg)
![The Ancient Sacred Tree: Birthing a Hero by [Brenner, Dawnette N.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51KdyB3pOdL.jpg)
Silver Award Winners
![Masks by [Restokian, Nataly]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51DoCwJwSWL.jpg)
![Beyond the Code by [Barthel, Kelsey Rae]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51UvDJOWUzL.jpg)
![YEGman by [Lavery, Konn]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51NTDiJDZfL._SY346_.jpg)
![The Ice Factory by [Phillips, Jason Roger]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/516-IlX6H%2BL._SY346_.jpg)
![In Darkness, There is Still Light (Wheeler Book 2) by [Zalesky, Sara Butler]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51iBATikc1L._SY346_.jpg)
![Lessons from a Difficult Person: How to Deal with People Like Us by [Elliston M.A.T, Sarah H.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51FJCfsVRnL.jpg)
![Fire in the Heart by [Mooney, Lesley J]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51lhHkjlXpL._SY346_.jpg)
![The Ghetto Blues by [Brooks, Tammy Campbell ]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51OI1KQ7OtL._SX260_.jpg)
![Man with the Sand Dollar Face by [CassanoLochman, Sharon]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41V-nR%2BTR%2BL._SY346_.jpg)
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information and see all award winners.
The Ghetto Blues
The Ghetto Blues by Tammy Campbell Brooks unexpectedly won my heart. The book’s full title is The Ghetto Blues – An Autobiography of Tammy Campbell Brooks’ Trepidation, Tragedy, and Triumph, and it follows the life of Tammy from childhood through adulthood. In the opening pages of the prologue, Tammy’s daughter writes, “In this book, you will go through different stages of emotions from tears, laughter, happiness, and joy of growing up in poverty and impoverished environments, but not letting the circumstances define you.” As I began the book, I was skeptical that I would experience all these emotions, but as I concluded the final chapter, “Bells Will Be Ringing,” I found that Tammy’s daughter had been entirely right all along.
Typically, authors are referred to by their last names in reviews, but after reading Tammy’s story, I feel it only right to call her by her first name. Tammy’s story was incredibly challenging for me to read at the beginning because it is so disparate from my own experience in suburban America. Growing up in the projects of San Antonio, Tammy had an upbringing that is almost unbelievable for most readers – gunshots, emotional and physical abuse, poverty, extreme hunger – but she avoids writing about her experiences in such a way as to say, oh woe is me! Completely the opposite, Tammy describes herself as driven and dedicated. Even though she experiences setbacks and succumbs to vices that will have readers wanting to call her up and say, what were you thinking?!, she does not let her weaknesses or mistakes define her, and she is always striving for the best out of herself.
Tammy’s autobiography is written in an almost spoken format, and not at all how Strunk & White might have preferred. While the typos and grammatical errors irritated me at the beginning on the book, I came to realize that if it had been written like Faulkner, for example, it would not have truly been Tammy’s autobiography. Her story is edgy and uncomfortable, and sometimes painful to read. It is the opposite of polished, but it is honest and eye-opening. That said, the book would have benefitted from some additional editing to correct some of the simple spelling errors and word usage errors. Those glaring errors are the only reason I would give the story four stars instead of five, because Tammy’s story is undeniably a full five stars.
Describing Tammy to someone who hasn’t read her autobiography feels almost as if she must be fictional: how could one woman overcome all those challenges thrown at her? Not only is Tammy an inspiration, but she was also eye-opening to me. I knew nothing of the ghetto lifestyle in the projects that she describes, and her story reiterates the age-old adage of “don’t judge a book by its cover.” At the conclusion of her autobiography, my overwhelming emotion was one of thinking that Tammy’s story would be amazing to share through radio or podcast. The courage and strength that it took Tammy to share her and her family’s story with readers should not be underestimated, and I hope that many readers have the opportunity to learn from her experiences.
Pages: 257 | ASIN: B07BFKCQZ9
Grandma’s Secret Blessings Book Trailer
“Grandma’s Secret Blessings” A Memoir with a Twist, written By JohnEGreek
Take a ride with JohnEgreek as he journeys to the Old Country to fulfill a childhood promise made to his grandparents when he was six years old. His grandmother, insightful and deeply spiritual guides him throughout his lifetime and after she is gone, as he himself opens to the reality of something higher than himself.
Second-generation Greek-American born, Author JohnEgreek, is brought into this world in 950 to a broken family. His father hates him from the very first day he is born and lives up to the unseen contract to hate him his entire life, without ever giving him a clue as to why. His mother showers him with her love, until her eventual death at the early age of fifty-one, which then forces him to grow on his own.
The powerful childhood promise becomes the avenue that opens his heart and awakens his soul. Grandma, who leaves the physical world when he is in his teens, enlightens him while she is alive and never stops enlightening him when she goes beyond, as she continues to shower him with her many “Secret Blessings.”
What happens along the way is a surreal journey and a deeply rooted experience? Travel with him and his pseudo family, as they discover the avenue to his soul and the recipe to Grandma’s Secret Blessings. You too can find the key that unlocks the door to the hidden ability to “transcend and go beyond.”
This book is for anyone teetering on the edge of disbelief that there is something higher than their greatest expectations as to why things happen. Everyone at some time or another will lose a loved one, but death is not the end, it is the beginning and they do find a way to speak to you from beyond. Make no mistake, this book will open your eyes as you discover the magical recipe to Grandma’s Secret Blessings and you too can use them to heal your heart and find the avenue to your soul.
The author recognizes that he is no one special, just a retired senior citizen, with a strained relationship with his adult children and a grandchild that he has never met. He has a unique and creative way to tell the emotional story about his life that will take you on a roller-coaster ride that will emit feelings of anger, guilt, fear, sorrow and pain. At times, it will be an agonizing, yet truthful story. During the unforgettable journey to the Old Country he has multiple synchronistic events where he finds the hidden secrets that provide him with the necessary elements to set himself free, heal his wounded children and unlock the door to his heart. You too can “Transcend and Go Beyond.”
Real Feelings and Emotions
Kim Nugent Author Interview
Did I Say Never is the emotional journey you took when you became a step mother to a special needs child. What was the inspiration that made you want to put your experiences into a book?
Truthfully when I began to reflect on our journey, I just kept thinking I wish there had been a book to help me. If we can help one family or a teacher or a caregiver by sharing what we learned, it was worth putting pen to paper.
I appreciated your candor and openness in the story, and it helped me fully understand your struggle. Was there anything that was difficult for you to write about?
Yes, any time I had to write about Brooks being injured or going back to the hospital was painful even at an older age of consuming nuts and bolts at the sheltered workshop. It literally makes me cry.
Do you find that there is a common misconception people have about special needs children?
Maybe not common misconception but as far as we have come in the area of disabilities, we have a long way to go. People feel uncomfortable around people who are different from them so they tend to avoid getting to know them. Special needs children have real feelings and emotions but they may express them differently.
I felt like this book was about family, devotion, and working through struggles. What do you hope readers take away from your book?
First, I truly want readers to use the book as a resource guide and ponder the questions for their family to consider what is best for them. Second, I hope they look at the milestones proactively and develop a plan for what they want as a family. Third, look for the angels in your life that can help. Finally, realize you are not alone even though there will be many days you think you are all alone.
Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook
![Did I Say Never?: A Stepparent's Emotional Journey with her Special Needs Son by [Nugent, Kim]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51dubB2UikL.jpg)
Dr. Kim Nugent is the best-selling author of Did I Say Never. Kim shares her personal 32 year spiritual journey, a true story, filled with sorrows and joys, challenges and tears that unfolded during her marriage and life as a step parent. The intention of the book is to provide ideas, questions, resources and heartfelt encouragement for parent’s to help their special needs child or adult so they achieve their full potential and improve the overall quality of their life.
Kim never thought she would marry again and for sure not to a man who had children.
Little did she know that her life would change –in unimaginable and dramatic ways, and this is where the story begins!
Did I Say Never is an emotional journey of love, frustration, and overwhelm. Kim step-by-step describes the details of each step she took on the path and talks about the Angels that appeared just at the right time to guide and uplift her.
While Kim does not have all the answers for you and your family, she knows the struggles, pains, joys and victories. Kim offers remarkable disability resources and questions for consideration for you, your family, teachers, and caregivers.
Have you ever felt completely lost, confused or extremely overwhelmed about what to do next with your disabled child or adult? Have you ever felt clueless as to what questions to ask next or what resources might be available to you? Then grab a copy and don’t let anyone stop you from “designing your life without limits”! Did I Say Never is a must read.
All Of My Human Fragility
Paulette Bodeman Author Interview
The BreakAway Girl: Secrets of a Tantric Yogi is a memoir about your life and how you found peace through hard times. What was the inspiration that made you want to put your story into a book?
Great question. As I mention in the book I’ve been blessed over the years to have the privilege of teaching yoga to so many remarkable students. As a result, in many ways the book is a response to questions I’ve been asked over time. I also believe it’s important that as a teacher you’re seen as a human being. Who can be just as frightened at times, unaware at times, and who may have struggled with insecurities just like the person next to you on the mat, or in front of you at the grocery check-out. It’s all part of this human embodiment.
What I enjoyed was that you didn’t shy away from retelling the difficult moments in your life. Was there anything that was difficult for you to write about?
Ha – yes! Quite honestly revealing all of my human fragility was difficult. It’s not easy to rip open your heart and expose your vulnerabilities so intimately. Knowing that most likely there will be judgement and commentary. Yet, as a writer it’s how I make sense of my world. I teach the whole of yoga, not simply poses. So, for me it’s a way that I’ve learned how to not spiritually by-pass and one way to be self-accountable. By doing that I’ve also learned, that in the right context, you allow others to see that they are not alone in the messiness that is life. And hopefully they feel more accepting of their own cracks and breakaways.
Writing a memoir forces you to look back and analyze life choices. Do you see things in your life differently now that you’ve written about it?
I love this question. I could write a lot about this, but one main analysis is that I’m more forgiving of myself. I realize that I was doing the best I could at the time. However mis-guided it might look like in retrospect. Plus, I’m even more grateful that I finally found my way to the path of yoga that continues every day to help me step more fully into my own essence.
This book is inspirational as well as functional in that you give some yoga pose instruction in the back of your book. What do you hope readers take away from The BreakAway Girl?
I hope that readers are inspired by my story of self-reflection, and ultimately as I see it, redemption. If they recognize themselves in any small way, I hope that my story might provide insight and motivation into their own breakaways. And to never give up on themselves. Also, if a reader is searching for a tool or a modality that might move them forward perhaps it is yoga – the myths, meditation, mantra, or asana might just be that something that will support their spiritual growth and personal transformation.
Author Links: Twitter | Facebook | Website | Instagram
Paulette Bodeman is a certified integrative life coach and an Anusara® certified yoga teacher and trainer. When Paulette’s students asked her if she’d always “had it all together”, The BreakAway Girl – Secrets of a Tantric Yogi, was born. Through self-reflection, a sacred yogic practice, Paulette realized that she’d had many significant “breakaway moments” – moments when she made conscious decisions to change her life. Throughout her 20+ years of study, Paulette moved through many phases overcoming numerous personal challenges.
The BreakAway Girl is divided into sections that she named for the Hindu Goddesses – Kali, Saraswati and Lakshmi. Only through introspection was Paulette able to understand the meaning the goddesses brought to her life, and how their energetic archetypes supported her personal growth and transformation. In keeping with a relatively new breed of contemporary writing, part memoir – part self-help, Ms. Bodeman reveals with raw honesty and humor the secrets that held her hostage and the secrets that helped to set her spirit free. While she writes with fearless determination from the trenches of personal experience the author’s ultimate message is not only universal, but life-affirming.
The BreakAway Girl: Secrets of a Tantric Yogi
![The BreakAway Girl: Secrets of a Tantric Yogi by [Bodeman, Paulette ]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51eNCqooaiL.jpg)
Life is filled with challenges and for people with crippling anxiety it is worse. That anxiety feeds depression, and the two together can define and break a person down, or they can adapt, find ways to manage it and thrive in life. The BreakAway: Girl Secrets of a Tantric Yogi by Paulette Bodeman is Paulette’s memoir’s. Her story ranges from early in life to after her child is grown and an adult himself. This collection of her memories works like the human brain, it isn’t linier, rather the memories flow back and forth leaving imprints on the reader. Throughout the book Paulette slowly discovers yoga in a variety of forms before finding her place, at the end of this book she shares her knowledge with information on how to mediate, yoga poses, and how to embrace your own BreakAway moments in life, be them big or small.
Paulette Bodeman decided when she started writing this book that she was not going to just include all the good points or put a happy twist on her life moments. She promised herself to include all the ugly moments, all the hard memories, from addiction, divorce, depression and loss. They were not written with caveats that ‘oh this made me a better person for living through it’. Instead it is just raw emotions. It is real life and despite the jumping from one memory to another often not in chronological order, it is captivating to the reader. Some people will be frustrated by the lack of cohesion from one memory to the next; but I found it relatable and it gave me a better understanding of her. When I think back in time to my own memories it is a jumbled road, and those pieces all fit together in my own broken puzzle, that is what this book reminds me of. You don’t put a puzzle together left to right, you fit them together as you find them and once done you have a complete picture.
Much of the book focuses on her finding herself though her experiences and how they all led her to where she is now. But written in her style that path isn’t clear. In the last part of the book she explains her views on BreakAway moments, big and small. She talks about how they are the defining moments in your life that you may or may not even reorganize as being a defining moment. This last part pulls together everything she wrote. The inclusion of mediation suggestions, yoga poses, and spiritual healing ideas just completes the book. You start reading about her chaotic and disjointed life and end with a guide on how to find your own path through your own chaos.
This is not your traditional yoga book, it is not your traditional book on finding inspiration in life or how to better yourself. It is not a self-help book you pick up and read step by step to find your perfect balance. It is a book that will inspire you, give you bits and pieces you can relate to and give you suggestions on finding your own inner peace at your own pace and discovering your own BreakAway moments and how they have defined you.
Pages: 226 | ASIN: B079NCH83G
Masks Book Trailer
Masks is a dark fictional tale, based on true-life events. It narrates the adventures of a young Armenian girl born in Lebanon in the seventies. She dreams of fame and power in Lebanon and the Arab world and shows resilience and motivation beyond her years. The novel delves into the world of the protagonist, Anna, who is surrounded by social, religious, and sexual taboos. She fiercely breaks the chains to enter the world she has strived to reach, in a seemingly conservative society barely emerging from a civil war. She builds her success on her remaining values, challenging her fate and sparing no way means to attain her goals.
As a disappointment to her parents, she walks the challenging paths alone, making her way toward fame and fortune despite lacking the support system to do so. Doors begin to open for her, and she enters the world of Arab celebrities. She is now a public figure in the Middle East, living an immoral married life in a materialistic world surrounded by influential business people and royal family members. She tries, in vain, to fill the void in her soul with sexual adventures and controversy by taking a wide variety of lovers. Her adventures invariably end in misery, doing nothing to awaken her from her numbness. Still, her vivid, out-of-control personality helps her move forward while simultaneously getting her in trouble. In the early stages of her life, she has suffered the unthinkable, being bullied and raped, with the civil war a constant backdrop throughout most of her childhood. The novel delves deep into Anna’s mind as she has flashbacks of the trauma she has suffered, offering the reader a hint of an explanation for her behavior.
In a society in which men dominate women, she is one of the few who realize that fashion, social status, plastic surgeries, and bright smiles are not the answer to happiness. She lives in a world where a girl is only worth as much as her virginity, where women do not dare to ask for a divorce, where the fear of retribution keeps them locked in a cage that is very rarely gilded.
As fame, money, and power slowly eat at her soul, the arrogant Anna falls in love with a total stranger—a young, single bachelor from Canada—after a night of secret passion. That is where the story begins to unravel as she returns home with a scandal in her back pocket, her eyes and ears and heart tuned to this man instead of her husband. Anna realizes that neither her marriage nor her achievements have ever made her happy, so she decides to throw it all away. The lies and deceit that fill the so-called glamorous life she has been leading are floating up to the surface, including her husband’s infidelity and the critical steps she has taken to reach the top.
Marriage, family, career—all destroyed to be united with the stranger. She starts a new battle, this time struggling to change her destiny for someone she barely knows, who lives oceans apart and offers her nothing except his heart.
She risks everything, turning her whole life upside down. Anna realizes that her happiness, inner peace, and love are found worlds away from her own, with someone she would never have expected to be her soul mate. Still, Anna’s sacrifices are not behind her, and the struggle has not yet ended, although she has found what she has needed all her life: redemption and unconditional love.
The stranger enigmatically hints at emotions in Anna that have been hidden for a long time behind the masks of her dark and shallow lifestyle.
The characters in the story are the voices of so many who do not dare to speak up in a world where social and religious standards openly chastise the very actions that behind closed doors have become the ultimate paradigmatic way of life.
LITERARY TITAN 