Summer reading blog hop

I'm so pleased that Susan Weidener invited me to participate in this blog hop and was so generous in her praise of my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. I'm now paying it forward by recommending a few traditionally and independently published books for your summer reading enjoyment. Please include some of your favorite reads in the comments below. Adventures in Mother-Sitting by Doreen Cox. In this love story Author Doreen Cox shares her experience as a "care bear" during the last three years of her mother's life and how she learned to live with her mother's slow progression from a viable, interesting, lovable, and happy woman to a woman overcome by dementia unable to handle even her most basic bodily needs. And Doreen doesn't shirk away from those details. She repeatedly quotes her mother's mantra: "You just do what you have to do." Doreen gave up her as a career group counselor at an alternative school for at-risk and SED high school students to care for her mother, and she never … [Read more...]

Some important events

Even while I work a temporary day job an hour away from my home office and writing room, author events still go on. On Thursday of this week I was interviewed again by Cyrus Webb on Conversations LIVE about my memoir Leaving The Hall Light On. This year we spent a little more time on the impact of mental illness on a family, and I was thrilled to tell the audience about our son Paul's music career. Paul showed an interest in music ("I want to watch a record" "play more Cat Stevens, Mommy") from the time he was a little boy. It just blew me away that Cyrus reread my entire book in preparation for this second interview. Cyrus, you are an interviewer extraordinaire! Please listen to Cyrus and me here: Author Madeline Sharples returns to Conversations LIVE *** And I'm very excited to announce that Sonia Marsh, author of Freeways to Flip-Flops and editor of the My Gutsy Story Anthology, and I will participate on a panel to discuss "Relationship Building: The Secret to … [Read more...]

Meet master-networker, Sonia Marsh

I'm delighted to host Sonia Marsh, author of Freeways to Flip-Flops, today. I got the opportunity to ask her several questions about her writing and publishing experience. As you'll read from Sonia's answers, she is a master networker. I have learned an immense amount from her. Plus Sonia is very generous about imparting her wisdom. If you are thinking about self-publishing, and even if you have a publisher, take some tips from Sonia about how to market your book. I believe you formed your own publishing company for the release of your book. Why did you decide to do that rather than go the traditional publishing route? Like most writers. I was hoping to get a traditional publisher; in fact a small traditional publisher loved the premise of my story and kept asking me to show my manuscript. I knew it wasn't ready, but after her third request, I finally e-mailed it to her. She agreed it needed more work, and a year later, she asked to see it again. It still wasn't quite ready, … [Read more...]

Introducing Sonia Marsh

I met face to face with Sonia Marsh for the first time yesterday after a long virtual friendship and a lot of win-win networking. She is the author of the newly released memoir Freeways to Flip-Flops (available at Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle, as well as Barnes and Noble) and the Gutsy Livingblog. I posted my gutsy story there in June, and I'm pleased to say, I won for the gutsiest story of the month. Please go over to Gutsy Livingto receive a special gift. Just scroll down and look for the red starfish. So Sonia and I talked nonstop mostly about how to go about the business of selling a book. We shared websites, conference information, how to get on panel discussions, what organizations we belong to. I urged her to join our Greater Los Angeles Writers Society. Although Sonia lives in Orange County, GLAWS has members who come to meetings and events all the way from Arizona. Yesterday's highlight was meeting with one of the proprietors of my local indie … [Read more...]