*** Contains mature themes. For readers 18+ ***

“Living is what’s supposed to happen after you survive. It’s life in ‘post-survival’ that defines the human character’s ability to move forward from trauma.” - Maggie Kirton

My Firefly Updated Edition - 2018 includes "Ventice" my personal journal which I kept while pressing charges against my parents in 2011. If you have already read the original edition of My Firefly, please note that the content of the original edition has remained the same - the new content is located at the end of the original book and contains 200+ additional pages of text. The link to the new content, Ventice, can be found on the ‘Contents’ page.

My Firefly is a true account of a child's abuse at the hands of her family. It will pull you into its pages and grab hold of your spirit.

Seen from the perspective of the family home, a young girl struggles to stay alive as she is slowly ripped apart emotionally, physically, and sexually by her father. You’ll experience an abundance of feelings throughout this book and won’t be able to put it down.

It is cruel and brutish and bloody. But in the end, Kirton shows that there is hope of having a full and meaningful life even after a horrible and traumatic experience.

Author's reply to reviewers: Why does the house tell the story?

The people who do nothing; those which watch from the rafters, standing back and shaking their heads; those which stand by and pretend it didn’t happen or that it has no importance; those are the people I’m trying to reach. The house screamed for me because I couldn’t scream for myself when I wrote my story or when I lived it. No one heard me and those who did, turned a blind eye. I was a waste of their time. Maybe if they remove themselves from my voice they might use their own to make a difference in someone else’s life.

So, thank you, all of you, for the reviews . . . it means that my book made some noise whether it is good or bad is really beside the point.

I don’t want the reader of my book to feel my pain or hear my screams. I want the reader to feel what the house felt: helpless, incapable, useless, and silent - because that is exactly how an abused child sees the world around them. An abused child is not so much in pain as much as they are ‘alone’ while waiting for the next pain to be done with.

And now, before you buy my book and read it, you are forewarned. This book is brutal, graphic in its details and its subject is insane on many levels.

My Firefly is being used in school systems to help identify abuse in students. It has opened the ‘doors of hope’ to many other survivors. It has helped remind me that I am alive in spite of its contents. Besides, there are too many incidents to mention that are NOT in this book - I only wrote about the easy ones.

Imagination saved my life when I was a child; why shouldn’t I write it in the most creative and unique voice possible?!

Set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, Redlined exposes the racist lending rules that refuse mortgages to anyone in areas with even one black resident. As blacks move deeper into Chicago’s West Side during the 1960s, whites flee by the thousands. But Linda Gartz’s parents, Fred and Lil choose to stay in their integrating neighborhood, overcoming previous prejudices as they meet and form friendships with their African American neighbors. The community sinks into increasing poverty and crime after two race riots destroy its once vibrant business district, but Fred and Lil continue to nurture their three apartment buildings and tenants for the next twenty years in a devastated landscape―even as their own relationship cracks and withers.


After her parents’ deaths, Gartz discovers long-hidden letters, diaries, documents, and photos stashed in the attic of her former home. Determined to learn what forces shattered her parents’ marriage and undermined her community, she searches through the family archives and immerses herself in books on racial change in American neighborhoods. Told through the lens of Gartz’s discoveries of the personal and political, Redlined delivers a riveting story of a community fractured by racial turmoil, an unraveling and conflicted marriage, a daughter’s fight for sexual independence, and an up-close, intimate view of the racial and social upheavals of the 1960s.

A shocking sex scandal made headlines around the world. The truth was stranger than fiction.
On a quiet spring morning in 2010, a group of federal, state and local law enforcement agents gathered in northern Washington State to stage a raid. Their target: a rustic cabin perched high on a hilltop, just five miles from the Canadian border. At the time, it was inhabited by a high-tech entrepreneur who provided encryption and privacy services. The once-wealthy man now lived in the little cabin with his dogs and horses, including a champion show jumping stallion. Authorities accused Douglas Spink of a shocking crime--operating a commercial bestiality farm. But in fact the whole truth was more complicated than that. Reporter Carreen Maloney spent years seeking the real story, ultimately uncovering a secret society of zoophiles who form their main social, emotional and physical bonds with animals. Uniquely Dangerous sheds light on a worldwide social phenomenon that dares not venture from the shadows.

A young lesbian girl grows beyond fear to fearlessness as she comes of age in the '60s amid religious, social, and legal barriers.

Carol Anderson grows up in a fundamentalist Christian home in the '60s, a time when being gay was in opposition to all social and religious mores and against the law in most states. Fearing the rejection of her parents, she hides the truth about her love orientation, creating emotional distance from them for years, as she desperately struggles to harness her powerful attractions to women while pursuing false efforts to be with men.

The watershed point in Carol's journey comes when she returns to graduate school and discovers the feminist movement, which emboldens her sense of personal power and the freedom to love whom she chooses. But this sense of self-possession comes too late for honesty with her father. His unexpected death before she can tell him the truth brings the full cost of Carol's secret crashing in?compelling her to come out to her mother before it is too late. Candid and poignant, You Can't Buy Love Like That reveals the complex invisible dynamics that arise for gay people who are forced to hide their true selves in order to survive and celebrates the hard-won rewards of finding one's courageous heart and achieving self-acceptance and self-love.

It was the spring of 1989. I was sixteen years old, a junior in high school and an honors student. I had what every teenager wants: a stable family, a nice home in the suburbs, a great group of friends, big plans for my future, and no reason to believe that any of that would ever change.

Then came my mother's psychosis.

I experienced first-hand the terror of watching someone I loved transform into a monster, the terror of discovering that I was to be her primary victim. For years I’ve lived with the sadness of knowing that she, too, was a helpless victim – a victim of a terrible disease that consumed and destroyed the strong and caring woman I had once called Mom.

My mother's illness took everything. My family, my home, my friends, my future. A year and a half later I would be living alone on the street on the other side of the country, wondering whether I could even survive on my own.

But I did. That was how my mother - my real mother - raised me. To survive.

She, too, was a survivor. It wasn't until last year that I learned that she had died - in 2007. No one will ever know her side of the story now. But perhaps, at last, it’s time for me to tell mine.

Tracey Brame took an oath to serve the nation at the United States Military Academy. During her stay, Brame subsequently suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. She kept charging through her West Point duties oblivious of her condition. After serving her commission time, Brame took a job in her home state of Indiana where she expressed an interest in entering politics. The Ku Klux Klan, who did not want an educated African American woman to run for an Indiana office, targeted Brame for continued organized crime and harassment. She moved from Bloomington to Indianapolis, but the KKK pursuit -ordered by two grand dragons, a father/son duo - continued.

Get ready for a gripping memoir of one woman’s perseverance over adversity.

Did you ever wonder why someone would commit suicide? Have you been touched by a suicide in some manner? Did you ever wonder how everyone missed all the warning signs?

Only a person that has lived though this harrowing event can explain why they did it. Suicide is not logical and difficult to understand. It is a hush, hush topic that no one feels comfortable talking about. Very few people live through a serious suicide attempt and can actually talk about it or want to share the darkest moment of their life.

Ben is different. He had the courage to write and share his story to the world within three months of his attempt to take his life. Within the pages, you will find out why Ben took deliberate action to end his life by pulling the trigger in his living room after making a phone call.

This book breaks all the rules and the social stigma around depression and suicide and will give you an inside personal view on what it is like to battle depression and anxiety. We will talk about it candidly in a way that is easy to understand. We will have to warn you that some parts of the book are disturbing. It reads like a fiction novel, but the story is 100% true, raw, and very personal.

Ben was the happy-go-lucky, normal guy to the outside world, but inside he was a broken man teetering on the edge of the precipice.He pulled the trigger. He regretted it. He died. He was revived. He died again. He was revived the second time.

After the attempt, when he awoke in the hospital, he recalled a burning desire to make things right again. This book is Ben's attempt to make things right. He wants to help people who are struggling, who are at the breaking point.

This amazing story will give you a new perspective or may even change your life.

- You will have a greater insight into depression and you will be better able to help someone who is struggling with this disease.

- You will gain more compassion and understanding for people who are struggling, not just with depression, but with other life struggles.

- You will be more confident to intervene and take action if you know someone who is threatening suicide or is heading down the rabbit hole.

- You will develop a greater awareness of the evil twins, "depression sand anxiety."

If you are a depressed individual, you may see yourself in the story and you will know that you are not alone in your fight. Ben's story will help you to see what others do not understand. Consider Ben to be your friend and supporter. He will share all of his thoughts and insights.

For anyone battling depression and even negative thoughts, healing and recovery is not an overnight process. We are not alone in this world for a reason, although for someone who is battling depression, it can feel like you are alone in your fight.

When someone gets so low, it is hard for them to get up by themselves, so you will need to be there, if possible, and extend that helping hand. This book will also provide some valuable tips on how to talk to someone who may be suicidal.

Take action today by downloading this book. There is no doubt that you will benefit by reading a personal account of Ben's story. Enjoy this read and then take action to reach out and help someone who may be struggling. You never know who is hurting inside and who is at the end of their rope... literally.

Scroll to the top of the page and click the "Buy Now" button.

What is the true source of authentic power? Offering a detour from the dead end of this "buy more, be more" culture, the authors demonstrate why the traditional routes to power are accessible only for an elite few. Wrapping warm, profound stories of empowerment around an extensive body of research, Road Map to Power is your guide to a life of dignity, satisfaction, and happiness--and a guide to raising resilient children..

The importance and influence of the English language in modern life cannot be gainsaid. Not only is there a large and growing number of people who communicate in it - about one quarter of the world’s population by some estimates - but it is by far the world’s favorite second language, that is, the language more people are likely to speak than any other in addition to their own native tongues. Indeed, one of the enduring realities of modern life is the dominance of English as the language of communication across cultures. As goes Anglophone culture, so goes the world. With the acquisition of English, one also acquires not just the words and expressions, but, most critically, the system of thought and mindset associated with the language. Therein lies the crux of the matter: the unfortunate implications of this global dominance of the English language for the black race, and which implications form the subject of this book. Everyone knows that in English bad things are “black” and “black” things are not good (e.g. black spot, black day and blackmail). By the same token, good things are “white” and “white” things are not bad (white knight, white magic, white lie). The unfortunate, and dangerous, thing is that this categorization is not only widespread throughout the language, but is systemic and systematically applied. This “blackness of bad/badness of black” concept, together with its accompanying mindset, and the consequences which flow from it for both black and white people, and for humanity at large, is the focus of this book. Of Black Servitude Without Slavery: The Unspoken Politics of The English Language avers that this “blackness of bad/badness of black” mindset, unavoidably imported into the realm of race relations, creates a situation in which black people effectively are held in perpetual psychological servitude, and the white person, independent of himself or herself, is imbued from childhood with a mindset of negativity towards “black” things, thus, wittingly or otherwise, negating the notion of equality of the races, which mindset he or she actually has to work hard to overcome. In substantiation of this averment, the author undertakes an exposition of the role and impact of the “blackness of bad” mindset in the daily lives of both black and white people, and ultimately of society-at-large. Among the contexts in which the subject is analyzed are those of race relations, the black image and black self-esteem, Western aesthetics, including the idea of beauty, constitutional law,and the administration and enforcement of criminal justice. The author, after thus exploring the broad ramifications for society of this essentially systemic defamation of the black race embodied in the "blackness of bad/badness of black, etc." terminology, with accompanying mindset, goes on to proffer a unique and effective solution, together with an implementing campaign, to remedy this situation as an urgent imperative of our time. Of Black Servitude Without Slavery: The Unspoken Politics of The English Language is a book of wide-ranging coverage that would engage anyone involved or interested in issues of philosophy, politics, linguistics, human rights, race relations, law, social justice and equity, and, for that matter, social behavior.

Jamarr's Promise is the shocking true story of Kristin I. Morris' fight to protect a nine-year-old child, Jamarr Cruz, that ended in his tragic death and New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS)'s denial of its responsibility in the case.

As a caseworker for DYFS, Kristin helped many children and families; it was her life's passion. Nine-year-old Jamarr was living with his grandparents after his mother's boyfriend, Vincent Williams, beat him repeatedly. Jamarr told Kristin it was not safe for him to return home. Kristin urgently tried to keep Jamarr safe with his grandparents, but was told by superiors that Latino children are kept in the home at all costs. This time, the cost was Jamarr Cruz's life. In 2009 after Jamaar's return to Omayra Cruz and Vincent Williams, Vincent beat Jamarr to death. Not only did Kristin's superiors at the DYFS block her efforts to help Jamarr, but when he was killed, they blamed Kristin for his death.

Jamarr's Promise is a call to end corrupt loyalties in New Jersey's DYFS. It is a call to protect children from Jamarr's fate. It is a call for justice for Kristin Morris, who did the right thing and was punished unjustly for it.