Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: 14 years old and up.

Q: What is the book about?
A: Swish: Maria in the Mourning is a non-fiction narrative which chronicles a mother’s process of mourning after losing her only child, the beautiful and charismatic Maria to a heroin overdose at 23.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: As a playwright I have produced six plays, and produced 3 plays for children. I have published poetry and won awards for my writing; in addition to teaching writing for twenty-five years, I have a B.A. in Literature and Theater (magna cum laude) and a M.A.T. in Secondary English Education both from Manhattanville College. After losing my only child to heroin, I needed to write a book that would appeal to everyone.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Swish transcends the subject of addiction and captures the essence of a life lost, and every range of emotion that parenting, relationships, loving, losing and moving on can explore. Not a biography, the experience is told from the mother’s point of view, then shifts to the voice of Maria through her letters and journal entries during her addiction.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: This book has a performance version: Swish: Maria in the Mourning: The Monologues, which has received stellar reviews as a theatrical success, and after three performances, continues to journey to many more stages.

Pam
Swish: Maria in the Mourning
Outskirts Press

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Children ages 10 and up. Although this is a children’s book, my advance readers have included adults in their 60s who love it.

Q: What is the book about?
A: The book teaches children about the dangers of drugs and that anyone can become addicted even on their first experience with cocaine or heroin and other drugs. It also teaches them that the human brain does not mature until the age of approximately 24 to 25 and that it’s critical that they don’t even think about doing drugs at any time but especially before the brain matures.

It is a fictionalized version of the death of a young man and several others who saw their dreams and their future stolen from them by doing drugs.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: Because I lost my own son to the disease of addiction. He also believed that a person could not become addicted on their first experiment with drugs. We watched him struggle with his addiction for 14 years and we learned a lot about addiction, much more than we wanted to know.

I interviewed many people about addiction from ordinary working moms and dads to experts in the addiction field. I saw what addiction does to the addicted person and their families up close and personal.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: My book is not pedantic and filled with a lot of facts and figures like so many books. This is not a textbook. This is a children’s book. This book is different because the story is told by the sassy but lovable family cat! He delivers a cleverly disguised educational lesson on drugs.

Children may not believe the D.A.R.E. classes or their parents but they do pay attention to what the cat says. The cat will make you smile and he’ll make you sad. He tells the story with humor and also pathos. It is not a gory book, but grabs the attention of the reader and makes them sit up and think. It teaches them that you can die from drugs and it teaches them that it can be a long struggle before they finally succumb to this insidious disease.

The cat talks about kids whose dreams were to be anything from senators and congressmen, to actresses and attorneys or sports figures, only to have these dreams shattered and their lives ended before they even had a chance to really live. The cat is not preachy but is full of himself and endearing and lends charm to an otherwise pithy book on a very serious subject.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: The book is good for young children to read by themselves but the child will also benefit by having an adult read it along with them so that they can giggle at the cat or lament the losses of the children together. The book gives an excellent opportunity for a meaningful dialogue between parent and child. This book would make an outstanding contribution to any school curriculum and in fact it is recommended by a retired school principal among other educators.

Published by Oak Tree Press, October, 2008, and available on amazon.com and my website www.theaddictionmonster.com

Price $12.95, 52 pages soft cover

ISBN 978-1-892343-54-3

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: The book is intended for absolutely everyone because addiction affects us all. You can’t turn around without bumping into someone who either is addicted, or knows someone who is addicted or has addiction in their family or workplace, their church, their circle of friends, etc.

Q: What is the book about?
A: The book is chock full of information with the latest news on addiction by leading addiction researchers. It also includes advice from parents to other parents on living with an addicted child. The book has a special section on the teen brain, how to perform an intervention, what signs to look for if you think your child is addicted, and so much more.

Q: Why am I the best person to write this book?
A: Because I have lived with, and lost, a person suffering from the disease of addiction.

I lost my own beloved, 31-year-old son who was a Paramedic and an RN, who suffered from this disease for 14 years.

I belong to two grief support sites where I share information with other affected families and I have interviewed many people on how they’ve handled this situation. I also am a member of the parent advisory board of the Partnership For a Drug-Free America.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: This book is unique because it includes interviews by leading addiction researchers, a Florida state representative, interviews with people involved in the methadone fight.

It tells about the latest ways to get high and includes slang terms for street drugs that parents need to know and keep their ears open for.

It has a chapter on “cheese,” another new way to get high that many parents are not aware of, how heroin is making a comeback and how the abuse and misuse of prescription drugs is actually killing more people than illicit drugs.

It has advice from parents to other parents on how to cope. It has a chapter on “enabling” and signs to look for if you suspect your child of using drugs. There is also a place for a parent and child to sign a pledge not to do drugs and for the parent to pledge to do all that is possible to prevent their child from using drugs. There is even more.

This is not a pedantic, scholarly book. It is written in easy to read language.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: This book is a sequel to my first book I Am Your Disease (The Many Faces of Addiction) which was published in October, 2006.

Included in this book is a reprint of the narrative called I Am Your Disease by the Anonymous Addict in which Heiko Ganzer, LCSW-R, CASAC, CH, tells how difficult it is to beat addiction. His protagonist is the “disease” who explains, as if he were a real person, in chilling and compelling language just what a stranglehold addiction has on people and how it isn’t that simple to just stop.

The book also includes excerpts from 40 stories from I Am Your Disease, in which parents pour their hearts out and bare their souls, telling of the anguish of living with an addicted person, and the ultimate heartbreak of losing that person to this insidious disease.

All three of my books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my website. I Am Your Disease is also available as an e-book on Booklocker where this book, Slaying the Addiction Monster, will soon be available also.