Dear WOW Readers and Followers –
I’m happy to share with you the good news that I’ve completed the writing project I set out to do at the end of this past May, when I put my weekly WOW blogposts to the side. I’m titling this new project THE OTHER SIDE, and I’m offering it as a gift to you – no strings attached! – in the hopes that you will read it and share it with anyone and everyone whom you think will benefit from it.
Just send me an e-mail requesting a copy of it in either a Word.doc or PDF, and I will send it on to you. It’s not long – only 157 pages – and it includes many photos. My e-mail address is: bonnieleeblack@yahoo.com .
(The photo above, of the Rio Grande Gorge, by fine art photographer Geraint Smith, graces the book’s cover)
Below is the Afterword from THE OTHER SIDE, which I think encapsulates the book’s purpose. Thank you for your continued interest. I look forward to hearing back from you.
Much love and all best wishes,
Bonnie
Afterword
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the U.S., which was established in 1984, was inspired in part, I was told, by the 1981 publication by Viking Press of SOMEWHERE CHILD. The Center now estimates that approximately 200,000 of the 260,000 children who are abducted each year in the country are taken by a parent or other family member (*). Clearly, and sadly, the issue of parental child abductions has not gone away in all these years.
My story may be an extreme case because of the extent of my ex-husband’s premeditation, the litigious lengths he went to, and his successful evasion of the law for so long. But it remains an example of the breadth and depth of harm and heartbreak these cases can cause. As I did with SOMEWHERE CHILD then, I share my personal story now, not for sympathy but rather in the hopes that it will raise consciousness about issues much larger than myself.
Over the years, some who have read SOMEWHERE CHILD have asked me, So what happened next? THE OTHER SIDE is my long answer to that question. In it I ask many questions, some of which I’m able to answer. Others, I’ve learned, are unanswerable. Other questions, perhaps, new readers will be able to answer for me. If so, I welcome your thoughts.
I’m offering this manuscript as a gift — in the form of a Word.doc or PDF — rather than a published book with a price tag on it, to anyone who emails me to request a copy. I’m hoping that those who read it will also share it widely as a free gift. When SOMEWHERE CHILD was published, I received dozens and dozens of letters from readers telling me I’d written their story. I’d like to think that THE OTHER SIDE will do the same. Because that’s why writers write.
With love and best wishes,
Bonnie
September 2024
(*) https://childsafety.losangelescriminallawyer.pro/amp/family-abduction.html
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