Dining Room Dispatches
A Year of Curated Musings on Life and Home
“These monthly passages are my way of honoring the beautiful nuances of the way we spend our lives. The way we wake up, work, play, hope and dream. It’s my tribute to the right now and the right around the corner. To the goodness of a day well spent and times we’re ready to close the curtains ready for a new morning.”
—Amy
The History Lesson
Liz Truman is in trouble. She’s an untenured faculty member at Littleton College whose future is in the hands of a college vice president with a grudge. Her mother, teetering on emotional collapse since the death of Liz’s beloved father and college president, is a constant source of irritation to Liz whom her mother calls “the last living single woman” in Hattaloochee, Alabama. With a growing list of detractors, Liz unleashes a series of events that exposes the ironies of academia, small towns and Southern traditions.
Brimming with humor and intrigue with a vivid cast of characters, The History Lesson frames universal lessons of grief, loyalty, and perseverance into one history professor’s endeavor to reconcile the past with her future.
This Side Up: The Road to a Renovated Life
A home and garden editor’s story of a life constantly under construction, none by design. Written with candor, humor, and grace, Amy shares her own home tour, but this one deftly sheds light on job loss, financial shame, home displacement, marital discord, illness, and caregiving. Faced with one crisis after the next, Amy discovers how to cope, hope, and rebuild, finding a new way home to a stronger way of life.
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Meet Amy
Amy Mangan is a writer whose work has been published in Salon, Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens’ Creative Home and Southern Accents. Her columns have appeared in numerous publications and she is the author of the memoir This Side Up The Road to a Renovated Life.; Accent Pieces: Collected Writings and Moments that Decorate Our Lives.; and The History Lesson.
Praise
Accent Pieces
“Amy’s candid truths shimmer from these pages as if from a dear sibling or best friend. From decorating a porch to raising children, her insights are wise, hard-won, and refreshingly unassuming. Her essays give us permission to love the comforts of home, wear sensible shoes, and make mistakes. Accent Pieces is a big-hearted book.”
— Cynthia Barrett
Author of Mirage, Blue Revolution, and Rain
Accent Pieces
“I have had the pleasure of reading Amy’s columns for many years. They are as touching as they are funny, and they often remind me why I adore my hometown.”
— Dave Schlenker
Columnist, Ocala Style
This Side Up
“What would happen if we were so radically honest as Amy Mangan? In a world of Instagram and Facebook images of ‘perfect lives,’ Amy lifts the veil and shows there is no shame when life knocks you down to soul-crushing levels that you never dreamed of and discover ‘happily ever after,’ in reality, is very different than what we always pictured. Amy inspires us to reframe our letdowns, have some laughs, and embrace life with all of its beautiful, unexpected messes.”
— Stacy Strazis
Former Producer, The Oprah Winfrey Show
Accent Pieces
“Amy oftentimes reads our minds, spinning our secret thoughts into sense-making language that leaves us nodding and appreciating. Other times she’s a step ahead, offering glistening takes on the everyday and the achievable. From her pen to our hearts, the columns and essays enrich and entertain.”
— Carolanne Griffith Roberts
Former Editor, Southern Living
This Side Up
“Amy Mangan is a wonderful writer and a wise woman. I believe her memoir, This Side Up, will be read as a road map by anyone experiencing difficult times. The book is unflinching, real, and glimmers with what we all need: love, hope, and truth.”
— Connie May Fowler
Author of Before Women Has Wings and A Million Fragile Bones
This Side Up
“I’ve just finished reading this book. It’s wonderful. The honesty, humility, and hope expressed in these pages will resonate with many readers. This family’s resilience in the face of overwhelming circumstances is a testimony to their love for each other. And a testimony to the power of facing life’s challenges together.”
— Patrica Grunder
Accent Pieces
“Amy writes with honesty, grace, and a deft touch. Her work draws you in, and before you know it, you are learning something about yourself.”
— Jim Ross
Editor, In Season: Stories of Discovery, Loss, Home, and Places in Between
Accent Pieces
“As an editor, I look forward to reading Amy’s always-delightful words. Her personal stories and remembrances are wonderful observances of the joys of life. Her style is whimsical, touching, and funny – often within the same paragraph. Best of all? Her stories linger long after the reader turns the page.”
— Dean Blinkhorn
Editor. Ocala’s Good Life, CEP Network Quarterly, and the
CEP Annual Relocation & Business Guide
This Side Up
“As we near the close of the second decade in this millennium, historians have likely begun their comparisons between the first two ten-year benchmarks. Economists will likely see a reversal of fortunes. The economic crisis of 2008 and the recovery we are now experiencing. This memoir of Amy Mangan shares her family’s struggle to keep their heads above water as the waves of one financial crisis after another pulled them down. This is a true American success story. Not because there’s a happily-ever-after, but because there is a true-grit determination to fight through adversity, no matter how hopeless life seemed at the time.”
— Ginger Broslat