TO BE RELEASED THIS SUMMER
The autobiography will be available in a few months and will be subtitled: A Survivor’s Tale. Below are descriptions and information about the book.
WITH HEART DIVIDED
As adults, when we are hurt or defeated, life goes on somehow. We get up, brush ourselves off and continue trying to make it in our world. But how do children pick up the broken pieces and feel safe again? How can they trust God if their own family can’t keep them safe? What do we say to a family scarred by incest? Is there hope? Can anything good come from such evil? Do these horrible actions and choices repeat themselves through the generations or can they be stopped? How do our choices affect the outcome of our lives? Can a godly grandmother who is a prayer warrior really affect the lives of her grandchildren and great grandchildren? What can happen when two parents love God and try their best to raise a large, Christian family, not knowing that terrible acts are being committed in secret?
With Heart Divided addresses these questions. It’s a fascinating look into the lives of a large farm family growing up in America’s heartland in the 1940′s. You meet a little girl, Molly, who is harboring a dark secret that she must keep hidden until after she is married and raising her own family. If you have ever been wounded to the point where you turn your back on God, feeling He has turned away, or even betrayed you, then you will feel a connection to the lives in this true story.
Have you lost all hope of having anything good happen to you no matter how hard you try or how many self-help books you read? Do you harbor dark secrets that only God and you know about and feel you dare not share them? Or maybe you are serving people who are trying to cope with incest. Do you see the pain of another and don’t know what to say or do for him or her? Do you want to ask more questions about the trauma but don’t want to offend them?
Please come and meet Molly (Donna Swanson) and let her story bathe your soul with hope that God is real, that He certainly loves us and will not leave us even when our world seems to fall apart. I have been a writer, speaker and Bible Scholar for 40 years, and currently write two weekly newspaper columns; author of the award-winning poem, Minnie Remembers, and an adult survivor of incest. My work has appeared in the periodicals of many denominations.
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This book will touch several classes of reader. The woman who has abuse issues in her past will relate strongly to Molly/Donna in her search for wholeness. The family of an adult survivor of incest will find answers here to relational issues and questions that seem to have no basis in reality. The woman who is beginning to suspect past sexual trauma will pick up this book and find it telling her story. Therapists and counselors will use the book as a reference tool when working with incest survivors and their families. It will give them a look inside the thought processes of their clients.Pastors will use this book to find clues to symptoms and actions which otherwise would be difficult to understand.The audience is definitely from college age to adult and would include singles, married, men and women.
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
With Heart Divided is the autobiography of Donna Swanson; artist, poet, author, wife, mother and grandmother. Born in Indiana in 1938, the Great Depression and WWII formed the backdrop of her childhood. Youngest of eight children and a twin, Donna fought for affirmation of her person hood in a family that placed little value on a daughter. Although gifted with the ability to manipulate words and melody and to reproduce any art form to which she was exposed, Donna Swanson grew up with no sense of self. It was not until age forty-seven that her real childhood was revealed. An adult survivor of incest, the tracks of that trauma became visible and she began the journey to wholeness, both in counseling, journaling, and her creative gifts.
While the autobiography tells the story of Donna and her alter-ego, Molly, it is also the story of a farm family and the legacy which incest leaves in its wake. Humor runs through the book and faith, though battered and tested, is clung to stubbornly. With Heart Divided rings with authenticity and hope. It is the story of one woman’s triumph over despair; victory in defeat and strength from the weakness of a helpless child. The story of her nuclear family and her children is told simply and compassionately. The mentors she meets along the way; authors, college professors, pastors, are shown as God’s guiding hand during her search for answers. Samples of her poetry and prose are sprinkled through the pages and an appendix will be added to give further answers for those who seek them.
With Heart Divided is a book that combines faith in God when that faith is battered and brutalized; strength in the midst of a maelstrom of shattered memories; faith in God’s goodness when all evidence points to His abandonment, and a new definition of success. While many books are written by those who have suffered sexual abuse, few take the time to explore the implications of that experience on the victim’s faith and most importantly on the creative gifts of an abused child. As a poet, artist and author, Swanson uniquely qualified to bring those gifts to bear on the subject of abuse and its aftermath from the perspective of the survivor. Years before she became aware of the absence of memories, her poetry was reflecting them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Donna Swanson was born during the Great Depression in 1938 to an Indiana farm family.Youngest of eight children and a twin, she has lived her entire life in Warren County, Indiana. A high school graduate, she chose to marry and raise a family rather than attend college; although she took classes in art, Koine’ Greek and psychology after marriage. She has written nine books: Mind Song, published by The Upper Room in Nashville, TN; Rachel’s Daughters, The Windfallow Chronicles (a double trilogy), self-published; Splinters of Light, yet to be published, and the present autobiography. A poem, Minnie Remembers, has become a standard tool in the study of gerontology, made into a documentary film by United Methodist Communications, and given the Golden Eagle Film Award. It has been reprinted in most denominational publications and over twenty-five books. Mrs. Swanson is a Bible scholar and taught adult Bible classes for over forty years. She began prayer and share groups for women in two area Churches and hosted a teenage “rap” group in her home for four years. She counts among her mentors college professors, authors and ministers.
