TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR BACKGROUND
KRYSTAL CASEY: I was born on an Army base in Germany to teenage parents and took my first international flight just weeks later to return stateside into what would be an unsettled and traumatic childhood. The oldest of 5 in a blended family, I spent my childhood navigating their treacherous divorce, a scarring custody battle, and so many layers of abuse that mental illness as an adult was inevitable. As a child, we moved constantly, but I really lived in two places: in my head and in books. That is how I escaped the horror of what I was living at home.
SUSAN FARESE: I was born in Northern New Jersey a long time ago and grew up there attending parochial school until 8th grade. We moved “down the shore” in 1969 to Central New Jersey. I entered public school there and after high school attended college in Pennsylvania. I have my masters and bachelor degrees in Nursing. I am a veteran and have been an entrepreneur consultant since 1991. I’ve lived in several states coast to coast and a few countries. My husband and I are empty nesters and have one daughter who also lives locally.
CARLETTE ANDERSON: Born and raised in Brooklyn NY, had no siblings. My parents owned the local candy store. I started ice skating lessons when I was 6 years old. Turned pro at 13 years old by skating in the Thanksgiving ice shows at Rockefeller Center. Married my college sweetheart, had four children. Divorced after 8 years and remarried 9 years later. Been married for 38 years.
JACQUELINE SEMHA NATAF GMACH: Born in Tunisia in 1940 to Mathilde and Joseph Nataf, where her father was a dentist and her mother was a homemaker. The name Nataf is derived from the Hebrew word for an incense described in the Old Testament. early childhood was punctuated by the Nazi invasion of Tunisia, at that time a French protectorate, in 1942.
LAURA ENGEL: I was born and raised in Biloxi, Mississippi and transplanted here in San Diego County over 55 years ago. I grew up in the 1950s in a typical middle-class family in the deep South. I was the oldest child and only daughter with three younger brothers. I loved school and writing and had dreams of becoming a journalist. In my senior year of high school, I became pregnant, and my parents hurried me away to hide me at an unwed mothers’ home in New Orleans. I was seventeen and I was forced to surrender my first-born son to a closed adoption. I was told I was never to search for this child, and this was for the best. This event turned my life upside down and filled me with such grief and enormous guilt that it became the darkest secret of my life. The following year I married and moved to California where I became the mother of three more son and created a new life for myself. After a divorce, I struggled as a single mother and worked several jobs in San Diego that lead to a wonderful career in title insurance, which I enjoyed for over 35 years. During that time my second husband and I raised our blended family of five children here in El Cajon. We are now the lucky Grammy and PaPa of ten beloved grandchildren. In 2016 my secret son and I reunited through Ancestry DNA.
WHAT WAS THE FIRST BOOK YOU EVER BOUGHT? WHAT BOOK OR STORY MADE AN IMPRESSION ON YOU?
KRYSTAL: The first book I ever read was “The Little Red Hen.” I remember sitting on the couch in my grandparents’ apartment reading as my mom was making dinner. I was eager to show her what I had been learning in school so after we ate she sat next to me as I read the story word for word. I remember beaming so brightly I felt as if there was a light shining from inside me when she realized I was actually reading. That was the spark for my love of reading right there.
SUSAN: I read and enjoyed plays since I was involved in drama club in high school notably “The Crucible” and the play “Spoon River Anthology.” As a high schooler, I enjoyed the book “YES I CAN” by Sammy Davis Junior.
CARLETTE: The first book that made an impression on me is “On the Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin. I read it while breast feeding my infant son.
JACQUELINE: I remember the first film I saw “Bim, le petit âne.” Then the book was published. And I cherish it.
LAURA: The first book I remember was “The Pokey Little Puppy” a little Golden Book for children. I must have been two or three years old when my mama first read it to me. I fell in love with books from that moment on and became a certified bookworm. The first book I remember purchasing was Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on The Prairie” – my third grade teacher had read that series to our class.
DID YOU GROW UP SURROUNDED BY BOOKS OR DID YOU HAVE TO SEEK THEM OUT?
KRYSTAL: I was surrounded by books! They were about the only thing that I was allowed to have and I simply devoured them. The library has always been one of my favorite places (still is) and I would regularly receive books and journals as gifts.
SUSAN: I tended to seek books out at the local libraries, high school or college.
CARLETTE: We didn’t have books in my house. When I was a child I had a difficult time learning how to read. My mind would wander. Later, as an adult, I was diagnosed with ADD. Today I read two books at a time. Have one book at me bedside and one in my bathroom.
JACQUELINE: I recall that biographies of composers were very special to me. I asked and got a lot of those.
LAURA: I was lucky enough to be born to parents who were ferocious readers. Our home always had bookshelves in every room and a love of books was instilled in me and my brothers. There was every genre represented in our home and I remember sets of encyclopedias that I would sit for hours reading like they were novels. The only book I was ever forbidden to read was when I was in sixth grade my father saw me reading “Forever Amber” the classic by Kathleen Windsor at my grandmother’s house. I ended up secretly reading it anyway. I loved that book and still do.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO WRITE?
KRYSTAL: I’ve found writing to be cathartic since I was young and today it’s a path not just to healing, but to advocacy. I’m inspired to write as a means of using my voice and encouraging other women to use theirs as well.
SUSAN: I began writing poetry in 1991 after seeing the film “Awakenings”. A character reminded me of someone dear to me and long story short, I wrote my first poem, which led me to writing my book “POETIC EXPRESSIONS IN NURSING: SHARING THE CARING”. I am usually inspired by nature, values clarification, conflict, joy, fear, angst.
CARLETTE: My family inspires me. I have a dysfunctional family which I am one of the main characters. I follow the family drama and write down every crazy action and outcome. I turned my journal into a book when I wrote Dysfunctional is normal.
JACQUELINE: My kids. A legacy, the life story of their mother. I displaced them from Paris to San Diego. I thought that one day, when gone, they will have the memoirs of their mothers. Time in Tunis, in Paris, Time in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Time in Montreal. The title – “From Bomboloni to Bagel: A Story of Two Worlds.” How can you eat a bagel as an adult, when the Bomboloni was the pastry of your youth?
LAURA: As a child I kept a diary. I loved writing my secret thoughts locking them up safely afterward. I also wrote stories and often illustrated them as well. Writing has always been a release for me, a way to come to terms with life’s challenges, and a way to sort things out for myself. To me writing is like exercise – simply getting started is the hardest part.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MISCONCEPTIONS YOU HAD ABOUT BEING A WRITER?
KRYSTAL: One of the misconceptions that I mistakenly believed growing up was that being a writer wasn’t enough. It wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t cool enough, it wouldn’t pay enough… turns out, being a writer is like discovering this secret superpower I never knew I had. It’s not about fitting into someone else’s idea of cool; it’s about creating my own kind of cool. And as for the paycheck, well, the legacy that writing leaves behind is simply priceless.
SUSAN: No misconceptions. I never really thought about being a writer. It just happened serendipitously, and it continues to be that way.
CARLETTE: I never had any misconceptions about being a writer. I just wrote.
JACQUELINE: None.
LAURA: I honestly thought that a writer sat down and wrote a manuscript, not five drafts like I did over a period of 5 years. I thought authors submitted their work and it got published. It looked seamlessly easy from the outside looking in. Like much in life, writing and publishing are not as simple as they look.
WHY WRITE?
KRYSTAL: In the chaos of life, writing is an anchor, a way of saying, “Hey, I’ve got something to share, and it matters.” It’s not about being the coolest kid on the block; it’s about being genuine, making a difference, and heck, maybe even changing the world, one sentence at a time.
SUSAN: I write because it is cathartic and therapeutic for stress management, sharing stories, mindfulness.
CARLETTE: It is therapeutic and cathartic. Takes my mind off my dysfunctional family.
JACQUELINE: There is always a reason. For the novel, “The Antiphonary of Love: The Call of the Scroll.” For the novel, I wanted a book about love.
Meet the authors in person at The Alpine Library Feb. 3 beginning at 10:30 a.m.
