Finally I Get to Welcome Memoirist (!) Kim Stagliano!

November 30, 2010 | Leave A Comment

Kim Stagliano and I go wayyyyy back. We were cutting our teeth in this business at about the same time. Back then she was trying to have a novel published, but the more I learned about Kim and her extraordinary story and her even more compelling wit, the more I knew her efforts would be best directed at writing the memoir about her life. And she did it! Her story is about, as she puts it, “How one woman raises three daughters with autism, loses one at Disney World, stays married, has sex, bakes gluten-free, goes broke, and keeps her sense of humor. ‘Dr. Spock? Check. Penelope Ann Leach (remember her?)? Check. What to Expect When You’re Expecting? Check. I had a seven hundred dollar Bellini crib for God’s sake!'”

…and so begins Kim Stagliano’s electrifying and hilarious memoir All I Can Handle: I’m No Mother Theresa: A Life Raising Three Daughters with Autism, about her family’s journey raising three daughters with autism. In these stories, Stagliano has joined the ranks of David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs with her amazing ability to lay everything on the table—from family, friends, and enemies to basement floods to birthdays to (possible) heroin addictions—eviscerating and celebrating the absurd. From her love of Howard Stern to her increasing activism in the autism community and exhaustive search for treatments that will help her daughters, she covers it all. Always outspoken, often touching, and sometimes heartbreaking, Kim Stagliano is a powerful new voice in comedic writing—her “Kimoir” (as she calls it) will be a must-read within the autism community and the literary world at large.

Here’s a little bit more about Kim:

Hi, I’m Kim Stagliano, wife, Mom, writer, tired. My husband and I have three gorgeous girls – who have autism. Kind of impossible, considering autism affects boys 4:1 over girls. Mark and I have learned that impossible is often inescapable though. My book is a humorous look at a life that has been anything but ordinary or easy – and yet is full of laughter, joy and love. I promise, you won’t need a Prozac to read it. :)

I’m available for Skype bookclub appearances and would love to learn about your story. Email me at kimstagliano@gmail.com. I’ll be happy to send you a free signed bookplate to pop into your copy if you’ll email me your receipt. Check out my website at Kim Stagliano for more info. I encourage you to support your local independent bookseller. Thanks!

And I really do urge you to pick up Kim’s book. She’s hilarious, to begin with. And her family’s story is unbelievable, really it is. And on top of it all, Kim busted up a crime ring! Seriously. Check it out here!