Purple Breeze Press

16/07/2025

We are writing to announce that Rebecca Mlynarczyk has joined us as a Developmental Editor at Purple Breeze Press. Rebecca is Professor Emerita of Composition and Rhetoric at the City University of New York. She divides her time between Brooklyn, New York, and Plainfield, Massachusetts. She is the author of Conversations of the Mind: The Uses of Journal Writing for Second-Language Learners and the co-author of In Our Own Words (with Steven B. Haber) and Basic Writing (with George Otte). She is also author of a memoir, From Seed to Tree to Fruit: A Daughter’s Memoir of Grief and Healing. Please join us in welcoming Rebecca.

12/06/2025

Dear Friends,
We are running a $0. 99 sale on the Kindle version Rebecca Mlynarczyk's wonderful memoir. The sale runs from today until June 16. Don't miss this opportunity to read the eBook version of this remarkable book.

In , Rebecca Williams Mlynarczyk recalls her childhood as a transplanted Northerner growing up in the segregated South of the 1950s. At the center of the book is her father, Dr. Bert C. Williams, a beloved professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama. In 1954,...

17/05/2025

We are writing to announce the publication of Norbert Elliot's memoir, New Orleans: A Childhood. It is available in print, eBook, and audio from Audible. The book is read by the author.

When Norbert Elliot graduated from his New Orleans Catholic grammar school in 1966, he was determined to claw himself free from his family and the place they called home. Interlacing the history of one of America’s iconic cities with his childhood memories, Elliot explores two hundred and fifty years of intentional cruelty and promised charity. With a focus on disposable lives, his memoir calls into question traditional views of families and places and asks us to imagine the freedom of lives lived on the delicate line between what can, and cannot, be.

When Norbert Elliot graduated from his New Orleans Catholic grammar school in 1966, he was determined to claw himself free from his family and the place they called home. Interlacing the history of one of America’s iconic cities with his childhood memories, Elliot explores two hundred and fifty y....

11/05/2025

We are thrilled to announce the publication of From Seed to Tree to Fruit: A Daughter’s Memoir of Grief and Healing by Rebecca Williams Mlynarczyk.

“With great courage, emotional honesty and impeccable scholarship, theauthor embarks on a quest to learn the truth behind the mysterious deathof her gentle scientist father in a psychiatric hospital when she was nineyears old. Fearful of shattering a family imperative of silence, she findsunexpected joy in getting to know her youthful parents through a troveof letters written before her birth. From Seed to Tree to Fruit exemplifiesthe healing power of writing as a path through grief.”—Mindy Lewis, author of Life Inside: A Memoir

"Professor emerita of English at theCity University of New York, Mlynarczyk is a seasoned writer whooffers readers a poignant, deeply personal portrait of a troubled fatherthrough a child’s eyes. The book’s gripping narrative is accompaniedby a selection of family photos.”—Kirkus Reviews

In , Rebecca Williams Mlynarczyk recalls her childhood as a transplanted Northerner growing up in the segregated South of the 1950s. At the center of the book is her father, Dr. Bert C. Williams, a beloved professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama. In 1954,...

18/03/2025

We are writing to announce the newest member of the Purple Breeze Press editing team. Please join us in welcoming Rob Friedman as our Developmental Editor. Rob has held faculty and administrative positions at New Jersey Institute of Technology, New York Institute of Technology, University of Washington Tacoma, Montclair State University, Northern Arizona University and Eastern Washington University. He holds advanced degrees in American Literature and Information Systems.. His work has appeared in Computers and Security, International Journal on E-Learning, First Monday, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and Technovation. He and his spouse, Lorie, live in San Diego.

14/12/2024

We are writing to announce the publication of Promises Unbroken: Exploring God’s Covenant of Love from Birth to Eternity. Written to meet the present moment by Willem B. Slomp, Pastor Emeritus of the Immanuel Canadian Reformed Church in Edmonton, this heartfelt book reveals how God's covenant of grace provides the peace, hope, belonging, and security we so desperately need.

Congratulations, Willem!

Where do we hear God’s voice? How can we learn to listen?

In Promises Unbroken: Exploring God’s Covenant of Love from Birth to Eternity, Willem B. Slomp explores the many ways that we can hear God’s love for us and listen to his gentle yet powerful voice. This contemplative volume begins with a meditation on God as creator and guide, explores such topics as our search for the comfort of home, the inclusion of children in the covenant, and membership in God’s church. The volume concludes with reflections on prayer. Readers will find, time and again, the many ways that God’s covenant provides strength in times of trouble—and that our Lord has prepared a future for us that is beyond our wildest imaginations. Here is a story for those who long for the brokenness of this world to be mended, for those who look forward to God’s promised eternity.

About the Author:

Willem B. Slomp, BA, BSW, M.Div., is Pastor Emeritus of the Immanuel Canadian Reformed
Church in Edmonton.

Promises Unbroken: Exploring God’s Covenant of Love from Birth to Eternity

29/11/2024

We are writing to introduce the publication of The Rosetta Stone, a memoir written by by Virginia Wetherbee, the mother of rhetoric scholar Louise Wetherbee Phelps.

Virginia Wetherbee (1917-2015) was a member of the Greatest Generation, an uncommon woman whose outwardly quiet domestic life, shaped by two World Wars and the Depression, concealed a rich private life of the mind. Left motherless in the 1918 flu epidemic, she was raised by her larger-than-life father, a physician whose huge personality, brilliant mind, and shifting enthusiasms dominated their household and the small hospital he ran. Writing after her father’s death in 1955, Virginia evokes and reflects on her memories to free herself from his shadow. Facing her past with raw honesty, wit, and courage, Virginia accepts her heritage in all its complexity and finds the key—the Rosetta Stone—to maturing into a remarkable woman and writer, who has learned that “In each generation, to those who understand, is handed on the duty of weaving that fragile, shining web of love.”

Louise Wetherbee Phelps, Virginia Wetherbee’s daughter, edited The Rosetta Stone and contributed both an introduction and afterword. Professor Phelps is a longtime scholar and educator in the disciplinary study of writing. She contributed to the development of this field as a modern discipline through her scholarly writings and her pioneering work as a teacher, mentor, program developer, administrator, and consultant. Her current scholarship focuses on literacy and aging, writing over the lifespan, and cross-generational relations. Publishing her mother’s memoir is one part of her multi-faceted and evolving remembrance project, where she is exploring the many interlacing threads of literacy that link the lives and writings of her mother and herself.

The Rosetta Stone

11/10/2024

We are writing to introduce the publication of Frances Ward’s new memoir, A Working Woman.

Congratulations, Fran!

In A Working Woman, her second memoir, Ward describes a life-lived insistent on uncensured thought. Born in 1950, she recounts America’s hegemony of male dominance through experiences beginning with 1960s square dancing rather than sports and ending in 21st century command and control tactics used by organizational leaders. She also reflects on her health missions to Rwanda after the 1994 genocide and to impoverished areas in India in 2018. Critical of the oppression she has witnessed within and beyond disciplinary and national borders, she nevertheless believes in the dreams that United States offers.

“Even now,” she writes, “there remains a candle in the darkness.”

Biography

Frances Ward, PhD, RN, NP, is Professor Emerita at Temple University. She is also the Founding Dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey). Throughout her academic and research career, she maintained a clinical practice serving residents in Newark, Camden, and Philadelphia. Her first memoir, The Door of Last Resort: Memoirs of a Nurse Practitioner (Rutgers University Press, 2013) explored issues in primary health care delivery to poor, urban populations from the perspective of nurse practitioners and is intended to be their voice. In this new memoir, Ward recounts her lifelong experiences

A Working Woman

29/02/2024

We are writing to introduce the publication of Frances Ward’s new book, Annette: A Nurse’s Story.

Congratulations, Fran!

In her second historical novel with Purple Breeze Press, Frances Ward turns to a new subject: the nineteenth-century origin of a School of Nursing at Harvard. What, she wonders, would have happened at a critical moment in American history if healthcare had been envisioned as something other than disease management? And what would have happened had nursing led the way to a new future in which health maintenance and disease prevention were at the center of the nation’s fastest growing industry?

The novel focuses on the historical experiences of Annette Fiske, born in Cambridge in 1873. A student of Greek and Latin at Radcliffe College, Fiske entered the Waltham Training School for Nurses and, upon graduation, became a nursing leader. With Fisk at the center of the novel, Ward imagines an alternative history in which Fiske and her colleagues—Harvard President Charles W. Eliot and physician Alfred Worcester—are successful in creating a Harvard School of Nursing that, in time, transforms the United States healthcare system into a international model of health promotion and disease prevention.

As we witness the origin of what might have been universal care for all citizens, Ward shows us a future that might have resulted in an American health care system that may have become the envy of the world.

And, if we listen carefully to the lessons of history, might yet be.

Frances Ward, PhD, RN, NP, is Professor Emerita at Temple University. She is also the Founding Dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey). Throughout her academic and research career, she maintained a clinical practice serving residents in Newark, Camden, and Philadelphia.

In her second historical novel, Frances Ward turns to a new subject: the nineteenth-century origin of a School of Nursing at Harvard. What, she wonders, would have happened at a critical moment in American history if healthcare had been envisioned as something other than disease management? And w...

16/12/2023

We are writing to announce the publication of Galen Leonhardy's new book, Skipping Stones: A Memoir of Teaching.

Congratulations, Galen!

Galen Leonhardy, a Marine Corps veteran, provides readers with a montage of written memories and visual imagery in this contemplation on the orthodox and unorthodox learning experiences that facilitated his development as an educator. Throughout the book, he pays special attention to the varied ways teachers influenced his development as a community college English teacher devoutly committed to the wellbeing of students.

In this narrative exploration of the development and practice of a modern English educator, Leonhardy reflects on early educational experiences, family relationships, growing up on archaeological excavations, undergraduate and graduate studies, professional challenges, and a variety of learning experiences garnered through a life-long involvement with his Nimiipuu himyúume—his Nez Perce extended family.

Skipping Stones: A Memoir of Teaching

10/10/2023

We are writing to announce the publication of Rob Friedman's new book, The Road Taken: An Academic Memoir.

Congratulations, Rob!

The Road Taken: An Academic Memoir

18/08/2023

We are writing to announce our sixth book, The Road Taken: An Academic Memoir, by Robert Friedman.

Professor Friedman has held faculty and administrative positions at New Jersey Institute of Technology and four other public universities. He has published books and articles related to 19th century American literature, academic publishing, and how students experience computer science and information technology education.

Publication: Fall 2023