Your Turn: Ways to Celebrate Life Through Storytelling

by Tyra Manning

Overview

Creative expression through writing helps us uncover gems of hope and serenity, enabling us to navigate difficult times. Sharing stories with one another fills the space between us, inspires us, helps us forge stronger relationships, and teaches us that we’re more alike than different. In Your Turn, renowned educator Dr. Tyra Manning offers examples of stories from her own life, followed by an invitation for readers to delve onto their own emotional histories, with plenty of room to explore on the page with writing prompts and tools.

A guidebook for transformation through self-expression, Your Turn will spark readers’ creative thought and offers them a space to document their own self-reflection—helping them overcome challenges and move forward.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631524561
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Pages:	168
Sales rank:	677,982
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Dr. Tyra Manning is a renowned educator who brings an inspirational message of hope to individuals struggling with addiction, mental illness, or grief. She overcame personal struggles with substance abuse and mental illness and went on to become one of America’s top educators. As Superintendent of River Forest District 90 in Illinois, she presided for twelve years over high-performing public-school districts, where her students often reached the highest levels of academic achievement. Her debut book, Where the Water Meets the Sand, was awarded the Independent Book Publisher's (IBPA) 2017 Benjamin Franklin Gold Award for Best Memoir and the Texas Association of Authors Award for Best Autobiography. Though she travels around the country delivering the messages and lessons in book, Dr. Manning is a born-and-bred Texan currently living in the Texas Hill Country. She blogs twice per week at her website, www.tyramanning.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 Listening to Your Inner Voice 1

Chapter 2 Love and Larry 5

Chapter 3 Just Lock Me Up 23

Chapter 4 Freedom from Addictions 31

Chapter 5 Grief 43

Chapter 6 Moving On 55

Chapter 7 Choosing Gratitude 65

Chapter 8 Mentors Matter 77

Chapter 9 Creativity 91

Chapter 10 Spirituality 101

Chapter 11 Letting Go 109

Chapter 12 Breaking Bread 117

Chapter 13 Families We Choose, Families Who Choose Us 131

Chapter 14 The Gift of Music 143

Acknowledgments 152

Editorial Reviews

2020 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Winner in Self Help “A well-told saga of recovery from loss and emotional breakdown, and a tribute to the ordinary blessings that made it possible.” —Kirkus Reviews “Telling stories and writing through your everyday stresses is the key takeaway in Your Turn. Dr. Tyra Manning believes that writing brings about clarity and hope in life. Her essential tools will help you get your inner thoughts onto paper and get you focused on the positives.” —Parade “Our worrisome thoughts can feel big, urgent, and uncontrollable. As Manning said, it can feel like we’re ‘getting caught in a whirlpool.’ While we might not be drowning physically, we’re drowning in negative chatter, she said. Even though our worries can feel overwhelming, we can shrink them. We can channel them into solutions—or we can reveal them for what they are: unhelpful, unreasonable, and illogical. The key is to know the difference. ” —Psych Central “Your Turn provides advice on composing even more precise, telling details that truly capture one’s life journey, and for anyone wishing to tell her/his story, it’s an unusually useful and specific handbook to guide one’s writing.” —Coleen Grissom, Ph. D Professor of English Trinity University“Your Turn’s friendly and accessible tone makes it seem as if you’re sitting down with a dear friend sharing stories over a cup of coffee, but Manning doesn’t shy away from the hard realities of life’s more challenging moments. The writing prompts and examples offer readers an opportunity to truly get to know themselves through their stories, and hers.” —Bridget Boland, Modern Muse “Part memoir, part self-help, part writing instruction, Your Turn encourages readers to become writers by offering thematic prompts and short bits of instruction all shared in Manning’s infectiously positive voice.” —Lisa Glasgow, author advocate “Drawing on her own challenging life experiences, Dr. Tyra Manning presents an invitation and a guide to all of us to celebrate our lives through storytelling. As she remembered her own good times and bad times, she was rewarded with gifts of clarity, acceptance, forgiveness, and new perspectives on life. As you review your life experiences and share them with others, you reaffirm your own life—a task well worth pursuing.” —W. Walter Menninger, M.D, psychiatrist of the Menninger Foundation, former dean of the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry and Mental Health Science, former CEO of the Menninger Clinic, former editor of Psychiatry Digest, and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist “Dr. Manning paves the way for the aspiring writer to get their story on paper. We all have stories we want to tell and preserve.” —Nolan Brohaugh MSW, social worker, retired “Dr. Manning’s book is a step-by-step roadmap to guide you through the maze that is writing your perfect memoir or autobiography. And the best part is that rather than reading like another how-to manual, Your Turn is filled with wonderful stories and anecdotes that give you a glimpse into the authors own life. It’s a must read for any aspiring writer.” —Karen Keilt author of The Parrot’s Perch: A Memoir “Dr. Manning has given us a step by step recipe on how each person can write his/her story. We all have a story to write, and now you the reader will know how to get started.” —Tina Siemens, author of Seminole: Some People Never Give Up

From the Publisher

2019-05-14
A woman writes about her life experiences in order to cope with grief, addictions, and crises in this heartfelt memoir and self-help book.

Manning (Where the Water Meets the Sand, 2016), a retired middle schoolteacher and school district superintendent, looks back on a lifetime of traumas, including the death of her father when she was 9 years old; a teenage pregnancy that ended in adoption; and the death of her first husband in the Vietnam War, which left her a single mother to an infant daughter. She also dealt with psychological problems, including alcoholism, bulimia, the urge to cut herself, and major depression. An eight-month hospitalization in a Topeka, Kansas, psychiatric clinic in 1970 got her started writing about her troubles as a form of therapy, which she recommends to readers. Each chapter covers autobiographical reminiscences loosely arranged by theme; some recount fraught episodes in her life and others revisit positive memories and influences, including mentors who've helped her, family meal traditions, favorite recipes, and memorable musical performances. At the end of each chapter, she suggests writing exercises that treat similar themes and offers a few literary tips to make them more detailed and immediate. Along the way, she mixes in recovery teachings about maintaining sobriety (reciting the serenity prayer is a daily ritual for her), cultivating a sense of gratitude, and taking life one day at a time. Although the book is a bit of a ramble and sometimes repeats itself, Manning is a fluent writer who stocks her narratives with vivid anecdotes and character sketches. In darker moments of morbid obsession, her prose is truly harrowing: "I remember the immediate relief as I watched the blood drip from my wrist into the toilet. I stared down into the bowl, hypnotized by the swirling pink clouds, and rested my head on the toilet seat, no longer feeling alone, panicked, or crazy." The book isn't very useful as a manual for writing, but Manning's creative explorations make her psychological insights feel hard-won and credible.

A well-told saga of recovery from loss and emotional breakdown and a tribute to ordinary blessings that made it possible.

Kirkus Reviews