1. What inspired you to write this book? My parents asked me to empty their home for resale and help them transition to assisted living. Seeing the items from my childhood brought out of their attic triggered suppressed and forgotten childhood memories. It was as if the items from my childhood had an energetic all their own. It brought to light trauma and broken relationships that needed healing and forgiveness.
2. What exactly is it about-and who is it written for? As I relate the stories from my life, I analyze and re-frame each with new adult perspective. What lessons were learned, what inspiration? With each story, I share the healing and intentional forgiving. This is for the millions of GenX and Millennials dealing with aging parents, and anyone seeking a path to heal and recover from childhood programing and emotional triggers.
3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book? Readers will be empowered to re-frame the common childhood traumas of rejection. injustice, abandonment, humiliation and betrayal, and encouraged to reflect on their own life's journey. Retrospection can be a powerful healing elixir. The healing practices the book suggests are empowering and guiding the reader toward freedom of forgiveness, and the ability to rewrite old narratives that are no longer serving their spirit.
4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design? I had originally written these pages as my own healing journal, with no intent on making it public. I placed it in a file cabinet, where it languished for eight years. My father passed away. Then at 3am I was shaken awake with this message: The title of your book is Unpacking the Attic. The next morning there was an email from the Steve Harrison editing company. The cover design was also given to me in a lucid dream. it took me two weeks of searching through boxes in the basement to find the photo of two year old me. A family friend came to my house and set up his camera and background and took the shot.
5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers- other than run? Follow your passion. Be sure you are motivated to tell the story, because the world needs to hear it. No amount of fame or fortune is motivation enough, it has to come from the heart knowing that this is your calling.
6.What trends in the book world do you see- and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? I see an industry that is arrogant and self-serving. One. where publishers no longer value or have a personal connection with the authors, which is tragic. Where authors are expected to give up their copyrights for tiny compensation and still expected to do the marketing and promotion. But I also see the unwavering spirit of creatives who are willing to go it alone and be entrepreneurs.
7. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to? I write as if I am sharing a coffee with my best friend and telling them my story. It’s concise, to the point, and vivid. The closest I have found is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
8. What challenges did you
overcome in the writing of this book? When my mother passed away
last August, we were almost friends. I had spent decades hating her. The
process, the journey, of writing Unpacking the Attic enabled me to forgive her and extend a
compassion I would not have been capable of before.
9. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, shy should it be yours? So many of us have self-doubts, feelings of being unworthy of being loved, and childhood trauma. Unpacking the Attic is transformative. It takes the reader down a path that opens onto a new freedom, self-love and repaired relationships.
More About Ann Michelle Mracek:
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For
the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He
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Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the
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Born
and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids,
and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.
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