Showing results for "wayward" in Biographies & Memoirs

When Alice Greczyn's parents felt called by God to exchange worldly employment for heavenly provision, they followed their faith into homelessness with five children and a cat in tow. Homeschooled and avowed never to kiss a man until her wedding day, Alice had plans to escape by becoming a missionary nurse—plans that were put on hold with the opening of an unexpected door: the opportunity to be a Hollywood actress. What followed was a test of faith unlike any she had prepared for, one that forced her to learn to survive without the only framework for life she had ever known.

In 1968, Vashti Bunyan gave up everything and everybody she knew in London to take to the road with a horse, wagon, dog, guitar and her then partner. They made the long journey up to the Outer Hebrides in an odyssey of discovery and heartbreak, full of the joy of freedom and the trudge of everyday reality, sleeping in the woods, fighting freezing winters and homelessness. Along the way, Vashti wrote the songs that would lead to the recording of her 1970s album Just Another Diamond Day.

These hilarious essays on life inside and outside a Zen monastery make up the spiritual memoir of Shozan Jack Haubner, a Zen monk who didn’t really start out to be one. Raised in a conservative Catholic family, Shozan went on to study philosophy (becoming de-Catholicized in the process) and to pursue a career as a screenwriter and stand-up comic in the clubs of L.A. How he went from life in the fast lane to life on the stationary meditation cushion is the subject of this laugh-out-loud funny account of his experiences.

Picking up where he left off at the end of his widely praised debut memoir, One of These Things First, Gaines recounts his hilarious, sometimes poignant attempt to forge a writing career and a successful love life in the gay world of the 1970s. He has limited success until he falls in love with an older woman dying of cancer.

Children of the Wayward Wind tells my story as one of the five children they brought into their chaotic world—how we five children lived and survived the wild antics of our father Vernon. And how our mother Doris kept the family together through all of the chaos, instilling in us a strong sense of pride, resiliency, and moral and ethical behavior.

Is it better to be talented or lucky? Have you ever experienced a synchronicity? What are the things you will never regret doing? In this collection of blog posts and newspaper columns written during his time back in western Pennsylvania and while traveling around the country, novelist David Drayer explores these insightful questions and many more. You are invited to join him on open-ended motorcycle trips to peculiar small towns, late evening hikes through the woods, visits with ghosts from the past, and philosophical conversations from neighborhood bars.

Carla Funk is a teenager with her hands on the church piano keys and her feet edging toward the flames. Coming of age in a remote valley town - a place rich in Mennonites, loggers, and dutiful wives who submit to their husbands - she knows her destiny is to marry, have babies, and join the church ladies’ sewing circle. At once an affectionate coming-of-age tale and a contemplation on meaning, morality, and destiny, Mennonite Valley Girl is about the places we all long to escape - even if they are the same places that define us.

Set on the banks of the Boardman River, just south of Traverse City, Michigan, River Love is a compelling memoir about a dog named Sheldon and his remarkable journey to his true home. Tricia Frey shares her deeply personal story, starting from the day she and her sister co-purchased the river property in 2005. The following spring, Tricia spotted the skittish, frightened, little Sheltie she eventually named Sheldon. A shed was transformed into a house for Sheldon and a bond of love began.