SUSAN SHAPIRO

How Apologies Can Help You Move Forward With Your Life To err is human; to forgive divine. But what if the person who hurt you most refuses to apologize or express any regret? Thats the question haunting Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro when her trusted advisor of fifteen years repeatedly lies to her. Stunned by the betrayal, she can barely eat or sleep. Shes always seen herself as big-hearted and benevolent, someone who will forgive anyone anything as long as theyre remorseful. Yet the addiction specialist who helped her quit smoking, drinking, and drugs after decades of self-destruction wont explainor stophis ongoing deceit, leaving her blindsided. Her crisis management strategy is becoming her crisis. To protect her sanity and sobriety, Shapiro ends their relationship and vows theyll never speak again. Yet ghosting him doesnt end her distress. She has screaming arguments with him in her mind, relives their fallout in panicked nightmares and even lights a candle, chanting a secret Yiddish curse to exact revenge. In her entrancing, heartfelt new memoir The Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect Apology, Shapiro wrestles with how to exonerate someone who cant cough up a measly my bad or mumble mea culpa. Seeking wisdom, she explores the billion-dollar forgiveness industry touting the personal benefits of absolution, where the only choice on every channel is: radical forgiveness. She fears its all bullshit. Desperate for enlightenment, she surveys her old rabbis, as well as religious leaders from every denomination. Unable to reconcile all the confusing abstractions, she embarks on a cross country journey where she interviews people who suffered unforgivable wrongs that were never atoned: victims of genocides, sexual assault, infidelity, cruelty and racism. A Holocaust survivor in D.C. admits hes thrived from spite. A Michigan man meets with the drunk driver who killed his wife and children. A daughter in Seattle grapples with her motherwho stayed married to the father who raped her. Knowing their estrangement isnt her fault, a Florida mom spends eight years apologizing to her son anywaywith surprising results. Does love mean forever having to say youre sorry? Critics praised Shapiros previous memoir Lighting Up: How I Stopped Smoking, Drinking and Everything Else I Loved in Life Except Sex as fiercely honest, fascinating, funny and a mind-bendingly good read. Now the bestselling author and popular writing professor returns with a darker, wiser follow-up, addressing the universal enigma of blind forgiving. Shapiros brilliant new gurus sooth her broken psyche and answer her burning mystery: How can you forgive someone without an apology? Does she? Should you?

In this honest, hilarious, fiercely intelligent memoir, journalist Susan Shapiro dares to do what every woman dreams of: track down the five men who''d broken her heart and find out what really went wrong. Between the ages of thirteen and thirty-five, Susan had plunged into love, heart-first, five times. One bad breakup was more hurtful and humiliating than the next. With insight and daring, Susan chronicles her six-month-long journey back down a road strewn with romantic regret. Although for years she''d blamed her boyfriends for their flagrant infidelity, ludicrous faults, and immature foibles, to her shock she can now suddenly pinpoint the exact moment where she herself screwed up each relationship. A successful freelance writer living in Manhattan, Susan Shapiro was in the midst of a midlife crisis she called her no-book-no-baby summer. Married for five years to Aaron, a workaholic TV comedy writer always on the road, she was beginning to wonder if she''d remain book- and babyless forever. Then the phone rang, and it was Brad, a college flame who''d become a Harvard scientist with a book coming out. Susan offers to interview him, and she winds up launching into all the intense, invasive questions she''d always wanted to ask him. To her surprise, he answers them! This ignites a spark that sends her on a cross-country jaunt back through her lust-littered past. While Brad is still single, she finds that Heartbreaks Number Two, Three, and Four are not. George, a theater professor, and Richard, a music biographer, are happily married with children. Tom, a handsome blond lawyer in L.A., is getting divorced. Just as it''s becoming easy to worm her way back into her exes'' good graces, she crashes head-on with David, a wry Canadian root canal specialist. ("Its the equivalent of what you did to me emotionally," she tells him.) She then gut-wrenchingly relives the agony of splitting up with her first love all over again. Yet somewhere between the tantalizing what-ifs and bittersweet might-have-beens, she finds what she''s been searching for all along. Part relationship manifesto, part confessional, and part valentine to the males in her life she adores, Five Men Who Broke My Heart is for anyone who has ever wondered what became of their first love. Or second, third, f

A Brilliant, Buoyant Guide to Publishing Your Book Hundreds of thousands of books come out every year worldwide. So why not yours? In The Book Bible, New York Times bestseller and wildly popular Manhattan writing professor Susan Shapiro reveals the best and fastest ways to break into a mainstream publishing house. Unlike most writing manuals that stick to only one genre, Shapiro maps out the rules of all the sought-after, sellable categories: novels, memoirs, biography, how-to, essay collections, anthologies, humor, mystery, crime, poetry, picture books, young adult and middle grade, fiction and nonfiction. Shapiro once worried that selling 16 books in varied sub-sections made her a literary dabbler. Yet after helping her students publish many award-winning bestsellers on all shelves of the bookstore, she realized that her versatility had a huge upside. She could explain, from personal experience, the differences in making each kind of book, as well as ways to find the right genre for every project and how to craft a winning proposal or great cover letter to get a top agent and book editor to say yes. This valuable guide will teach both new and experienced scribes how to attain their dream of becoming a successful author.

Newspaper, magazine, and web editors are desperate for new voices and anyone, in any field, can break in. So why not you? Over the last two decades, writing professor Susan Shapiro has taught more than 25,000 students of all ages and backgrounds at NYU, Columbia, Temple, The New School, and Harvard University. Now in The Byline Bible she reveals the wildly popular "Instant Gratification Takes Too Long" technique shes perfected, sharing how to land impressive clips to start or re-launch your career. In frank and funny prose, the bestselling author of 12 books walks you through every stage of crafting and selling short nonfiction pieces. She shows you how to spot trendy subjects, where to start, finish and edit, and divulges specific steps to submit work, have it accepted, get paid, and see your byline in your favorite publication in lightning speed. With a foreword by Peter Catapano, long-time editor at the New York Times where many of Shapiros pupils have first seen print, this book offers everything you need to learn to write and sell your story in five weeks or less, including: How to craft a cover letter and subject heading to get read and reviewed quickly Who pay for essays, op-eds, regional, humor, or service pieces from unknown writers Ways to follow up, build on your success, land a TV or radio spot, become a regular contributor, staff writer, and find a literary agent for your book with one amazing clipWhether youre just starting out or ready to enhance your professional portfolio, this essential guide will prove that three pages can change your life.

In the critically acclaimed Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro revisited five self-destructive romances. In her hilarious, illuminating new memoir, Lighting Up, she rejects five self-destructive substances. This difficult quest for clean living starts with Shapiros shocking revelation that, at forty, her lengthiest, most emotionally satisfying relationship has been with cigarettes. A two-pack-a-day smoker since the age of thirteen, Susan Shapiro quickly discovers that its impossible to be a writer, a nonsmoker, sane, and slender in the same year. The last time she tried to quit, she gained twenty-three pounds, couldnt concentrate on work, and wanted to kill herself and her husband, Aaron, a TV comedy writer who hates her penchant for puffing away. Yet just as shes about to choose her vice over her marriage vows, she stumbles upon a secret weapon.Dr. Winters, the James Bond of psychotherapy, is a brilliant but unorthodox addiction specialist, a former chain-smoker himself. Working his weird magic on her psyche, he unravels the roots of her twenty-seven-year compulsion, the same dangerous dependency that has haunted her doctor father, her grandfather, and a pair of eccentric aunts from opposite sides of the family, along with Freud and nearly one in four Americans. Dr. Winters teaches her how to embrace suffering, then proclaims that her months of panic, depression, insecurity, vulnerability, and wild mood swings win her the award for the worst nicotine withdrawal in the history of the world.Shapiro finally does kick the habitwhile losing weight and finding career and connubial blissonly to discover that the second shes let go of her long-term crutch, shes already replaced it with another fixation. After banishing cigarettes, alcohol, dope, gum, and bread from her day-to-day existence, she conquers all her demons and survives deprivation overload. But relying religiously on Dr. Winters, she soon realizes that the only obsession she has left to quit is him. . . . Never has the battle to stem substance abuse been captured with such wit, sophisticated insight, and candor. Lighting Up is so compulsively readable, its addictive.

In this honest, hilarious, fiercely intelligent memoir, journalist Susan Shapiro dares to do what every woman dreams of: track down the five men whod broken her heart and find out what really went wrong. Between the ages of thirteen and thirty-five, Susan had plunged into love, heart-first, five times. One bad breakup was more hurtful and humiliating than the next. With insight and daring, Susan chronicles her six-month-long journey back down a road strewn with romantic regret. Although for years shed blamed her boyfriends for their flagrant infidelity, ludicrous faults, and immature foibles, to her shock she can now suddenly pinpoint the exact moment where she herself screwed up each relationship. A successful freelance writer living in Manhattan, Susan Shapiro was in the midst of a midlife crisis she called her no-book-no-baby summer. Married for five years to Aaron, a workaholic TV comedy writer always on the road, she was beginning to wonder if shed remain book- and babyless forever. Then the phone rang, and it was Brad, a college flame whod become a Harvard scientist with a book coming out. Susan offers to interview him, and she winds up launching into all the intense, invasive questions shed always wanted to ask him. To her surprise, he answers them! This ignites a spark that sends her on a cross-country jaunt back through her lust-littered past. While Brad is still single, she finds that Heartbreaks Number Two, Three, and Four are not. George, a theater professor, and Richard, a music biographer, are happily married with children. Tom, a handsome blond lawyer in L.A., is getting divorced. Just as its becoming easy to worm her way back into her exes good graces, she crashes head-on with David, a wry Canadian root canal specialist. ("Its the equivalent of what you did to me emotionally," she tells him.) She then gut-wrenchingly relives the agony of splitting up with her first love all over again. Yet somewhere between the tantalizing what-ifs and bittersweet might-have-beens, she finds what shes been searching for all along. Part relationship manifesto, part confessional, and part valentine to the males in her life she adores, Five Men Who Broke My Heart is for anyone who has ever wondered what became of their first love. Or second, third, fourth, or fifth

Ever since her former boss introduced her to her handsome, brilliant husband-to-be, Susan Shapiro has been on a marital mission. So far, shes fixed up twelve marriages and countless couples. Unlike all those relationship experts who are incapable of having a real relationship, or who took off their first ring to pledge their vows to their second or third life partner, Shapiro has witnessedand scoredon all sides of the setup spectrum. She learned to charm her own blind dates, walk down the aisle with her personal Mr. Perfect, keep her first and only marriage rapturous, and expertly set up dozens of other duets.Now the author of the acclaimed memoirs Lighting Up and Five Men Who Broke My Heart, and a self-proclaimed diehard romantic optimist, shares her honest, provocative, and sometimes downright subversive slant on every stage of dating, sex, and domestic relations. Shell show you how to: Fix yourself up first so youre really ready to be fixed up fabulously Recognize raw marriage material and not let a good one get away Break through your fears, insecurities, and dating defenses to land true love Find love mentors who will set you up and help you close the deal Decide which love and marriage myths to lose if you want to win Keep fixing up your relationship so it stays warm and loving forever

Is a smoking, alcohol, food, gambling, Internet, drug, or sex addiction holding you back from getting what you want most? Over the past twenty-five years, renowned addiction therapist Dr. Frederick Woolverton has used his dynamic, empathetic approach to help thousands of addicts achieve long-term recoveryincluding himself. He sees the specific habit as less important than the underlying chaos and fear that motivate the urge to soothe ourselves with bad habits. The solution, he has found, requires only a better understanding of yourself and a change in attitude.Using real patient examples as well as research and his own experience, Dr. Woolverton and coauthor and former patient Susan Shapiro show how to thrive without self-medicating. Woolvertons specific instructions do not require an expensive therapist, rehab, a twelve-step program, or a higher power (though he does make readers aware of those viable options). Let him help you beat your addiction. When you conquer a toxic habit, you are leaving room for something beautiful to take its place.

Is smoking, alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, the Internet, or sex addiction holding you back from getting what you want mostin work and in love? Were all addicted to somethingbut when the crutch gets in the way of living a happy and productive life, it must stop. Over the past twenty-five years, renowned addiction therapist Dr. Frederick Woolverton has used his dynamic, empathetic approach to help thousands of addicts achieve long-term recoveryincluding himself. He sees the specific habit as less important than the underlying chaos and fear that motivate the urge to sooth ourselves with bad habits. The solution, he has found, requires only a better understanding of yourself and a change in attitude. Unhooked: How To Quit Anything is an intelligent, readable, and actionable guide to conquering any addictive habit. Using real patient examples as well as research and his own experience, Dr. Woolverton and coauthor (and former patient) Susan Shapiro show how to thrive without self-medicating. The approach involves an unorthodox blend of straightforward changes to behavior and open and honest conversation with another person. Woolvertons specific instructions do not require an expensive therapist, rehab, 12-step program, or a higher power (but he does make readers aware of those viable options). Let him help you kick your addiction and find whats missing in your world. When you conquer a toxic habit, you are leaving room for something more beautiful to take its place.

A young survivor of the Bosnian War returns to his homeland to confront the people who betrayed his family. The story behind the YA novel World in Between: Based on a True Refugee Story. At age eleven, Kenan Trebincevic was a happy, karate-loving kid living with his family in the quiet Eastern European town of Brcko. Then, in the spring of 1992, war broke out and his friends, neighbors and teammates all turned on him. Pero - Kenans beloved karate coach - showed up at his door with an AK-47 - screaming: "You have one hour to leave or be killed!" Kenans only crime: he was Muslim. This poignant, searing memoir chronicles Kenans miraculous escape from the brutal ethnic cleansing campaign that swept the former Yugoslavia. After two decades in the United States, Kenan honors his fathers wish to visit their homeland, making a list of what he wants to do there. Kenan decides to confront the former next door neighbor who stole from his mother, see the concentration camp where his Dad and brother were imprisoned and stand on the grave of his first betrayer to make sure hes really dead. Back in the land of his birth, Kenan finds something more powerfuland shockingthan revenge.

Finalist for the American Book Fest Best Book AwardsAmerican Shield is an all-American tale of duty and determinationbeautifully told by an immigrant, a veteran, and a patriot. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Emerita of the United States House of RepresentativesSet against the extraordinary events of January 6, 2021, Aquilino Gonells inspirational memoir is rooted in the joys and struggles of the immigrant experience that have long defined the American experimentAquilino Gonell came to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a young boy. Although he spoke no English, he dedicated himself to his adopted land, striving for the American dream. Determined to be a success story, he joined the army to pay for college. He saw action in Iraq and returned home with PTSD. Believing in the promise of our government, he focused on healing himself and supporting his family. His hard work paid off when he landed a coveted position with the United States Capitol Police and rose to the rank of sergeant.January 6, 2021, changed everything. When insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, Gonell bravely faced down the mob attempting to thwart the peaceful transfer of power. The brutal injuries he sustained that day would end his career in law enforcement. But when some of the very people he put his life on the line to protect downplayed or denied the truth of that day, he chose to speak out against the injustice done to him and the country. Chronicling what it means to live a life of conviction, one that adheres to the best ideas of our democracy, American Shield is a bold testament to the power of truth, justice, and accountability from a highly decorated officer and immigrant who exemplifies the greatest aspirations of a grateful nation.

“American Shield” es una historia típicamente americano sobre el deber y la determinación — maravillosamente contada por un inmigrante, un veterano de guerra, y un patriota.” Nancy Pelosi, Speaker E