I’m very excited that Born Again, a mini-memoir that I conceived and birthed in the summer of 2023 as the thesis project for my master’s program, is now available for purchase.
I plan to publish a number of excerpts from the book here in the coming weeks. (The first of the series will be at the end of this piece.)
But first, let me offer a more in-depth look at what the book is, and the reception it’s gotten so far.
Born Again, though not a direct successor, certainly builds on the project I did last May with Dutch artist Erik Kessels, which was called “This Shirt Doesn’t Fit Anymore.” The book is an unflinching—and occasionally mortifying—look back at some things I’ve never really talked about, in ways I’ve never really talked about them. It’s sad, and funny, and awkward, and bizarre.1
I examine how I was impacted on a mental, emotional, and physical level by my fundamentalist religious upbringing. I look at how I’ve been haunted all my life by fear, shame, and guilt, and I attempt to make peace with messy memories and traumatic teachings from my childhood and show compassion to my younger self. But crucially, I also underscore my desire to finally leave those parts of my life behind and experience a new start.
I pair my writing with photographs from my childhood, as well as Bible verses and old journal entries, to reflect on and help make sense of who I was. Also included are photographs of a performance that served as art-as-therapy, in which I relived (for the camera of photographer Sohan Sam) the condemnation of my past, then pivoted to wash myself clean and begin anew.
I struggled greatly during the writing, as I fought to be honest and true to my story. But I also wrestled with a sense of responsibility, as I didn’t want to disrespect or hurt people that I care for and love deeply—particularly my parents, who I dedicated the book to. In the end, I don’t know if I got it all exactly right. Hindsight is 20/20, as the saying goes. Writing a memoir is the artistic equivalent of armchair quarterbacking: It’s easy to sit at this desk and point out mistakes made, when I wasn’t the one on the field, having to make the tough calls, in the heat of the moment.
Being human is hard. Realizing that one’s parents are only people—with their own struggles and dreams, hopes and disappointments—is very illuminating. In that light, it’s easier to believe they did the best they could.
Healing
My goal with the creation of Born Again was for the process itself to be an experience of rebirth for me.
I didn’t just want this to be a project that was symbolically about healing and new beginnings; I wanted the crafting of the project to literally heal and renew me.
When I gave the final presentation to the jury during the last week of school, I was well rehearsed and had a tightly crafted 21-minute story ready to show and tell. But things didn’t go exactly as planned. Instead, I found my voice cracking from raw emotion within the first minute or two of speaking. I was laying bare the blunt-force emotional traumas of my life for all to see, and I found the experience of sharing them to be rougher than I’d anticipated.
The address was one of the most intense and cathartic experiences of my life, both invigorating and exhausting. By the time I finished the presentation, nearly everyone in the room was crying, including two of the three judges on the evaluation panel. While this was certainly not how I’d imagined the day going, I realized that my desire was coming true: Born Again had healed me, right up to the end.
Now that several months have passed, I see even more how this project really was a turning point for me. I’ll never be the same—and I’m grateful.
…..
In a nod to my days in the music industry, I’ve come to think of Born Again as my “demo tape” or my “indie project.” While I’m really proud of the final work, it is still a self-financed school project, and there are many things about it I wish I could do differently, or better.
I had less than three months to develop the idea, execute the photo shoot, and write and design the book. At the end, despite hundreds of hours of effort, it felt like I ran out of time. Clocking in at just under a hundred pages, the book packs a punch, but I think it could become something even more with the investment of additional time and resources, should that opportunity ever present itself.2
While I certainly shouldered the bulk of the workload myself, I had indispensable help from a number of people who showed an unwavering commitment to, belief in, and enthusiasm for this project. I literally couldn’t have done it without photographer Sohan Sam and make-up artists Elena Lazou and Charlotte Lefèvre. Grazie mille!
Last but certainly not least, none of this would have been possible without the support and encouragement of my husband (and photo shoot assistant), Andrew Wolfram. Thank you, Uomo; I love you.
Testimonials
I sent early copies of Born Again to a select number of people; some of them know me very well, while others I just met here in Milan over the past year. Part of the reason I decided to make the book available for sale is because of the powerful and affirming feedback I received from them. So I’ve decided to share selections of their words with you, to let them make the case for what you can expect from the book.3
You’ll find the first excerpt from the book following these blurbs.
“I just finished the book. There's so much honesty, so much wisdom, so much growth, so much everything. No words I offer can contain my admiration. It's amazing.”
“It is riveting…I love it.”
“It's an intense process just to read—I cannot imagine the work it took to get through the creation of it.”
“You are so resilient and brave and beautiful. I have loved watching you grow and heal and find the courage to speak your truth, to purge yourself of the pain, anxiety, and struggle born of your trauma. I know this project will speak to others, so I hope lots of people have a chance to [read] it.”
"I absolutely love your writing. You have a way of welcoming and disarming the reader and painting pictures that are alive and accessible.”
“I so appreciate the vulnerability you chose in sharing excerpts from your journals of long ago.”
“Just finished. You. Are. Heroic.”
“Seeing the photos of a sweet, innocent, sensitive, hopeful, loving boy, juxtaposed with the stories and journal entries…Wow.”
“It’s so carefully crafted and powerful.”
“Drove me to tears. Everything on those pages. Everything.”
"This work is incredibly brave and vulnerable and illuminating.”
“[Y]our words…pierced my heart.”
"Thanks for making me feel seen in the most vivid of ways."
“[A] window into your soul”
“[You are] a fantastic writer and archivist of past trauma.”
“You have faced the 'demons' and won the victory. You deserve the trophy.”
“As I read your book, I hope[d] [for] a ‘born again’ experience for me, as well.”
“Yes, it is possible to actually be freed from the chains of past experiences, to let them go and move beyond the accompanying struggles and hurts and embrace instead a new life. And you've done it.”
"Congratulations for this project. It’s such a significant evolution.”
“I’m so deeply proud of you.”
“[It] wrapped up so beautifully. I cried repeatedly and [am still] crying as I write this.”
"I want to honor all the excruciatingly hard work you've done to reclaim yourself. Can't wait to see where your 'new life' will lead.”
BORN AGAIN: Original Sin, Part 1
This is the first in a series of excerpts.
I spent 25 years in corporate America, doing marketing work I was good at but had never really consciously or strategically chosen to do. At least from a professional standpoint, I wasn’t living my life so much as letting life happen to me.
Truth be told, I’d never felt like a “real adult.” Adults had children and mortgages, and adults had everything figured out, or so I’d somehow always assumed. But I had none of those. I had a husband and a dog, but beyond that, what I mostly had was decades of endlessly attempting to make sense of my harsh fundamentalist Christian past and to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Until, seemingly rather suddenly, I was staring straight into the eyes of the half-century mark, and I realized that I was running out of time.
Though by no means entirely prompted by this, a few months after I turned 50, my husband and I packed up our dog and our (significantly downsized) possessions and moved from California to Milan, Italy, where I began a Master in Photography program. I expected, in wildly naive fashion, that I was going to learn how to be a “real” photographer.
But that is not what art school is really about. To go to art school is to willingly submit oneself to emphatic yet ambiguous exhortations like:
“Get out of your comfort zone!”
“No compromise!”
“Dig deep!”
“Use your authentic voice to express how you see the world!”
“Show us who you really are!”
The thing is, that last one assumes that I know who I really am. At 51, I know who I was, and I know who I’m not, but I’m not sure I yet know who I am.
…..
I recently watched (and re-watched, multiple times) Tricia Rose Burt’s video “How to Draw a Nekkid Man,” in which she humorously relates how she left a successful but soul-sucking career in corporate public relations to go to art school. She talked about her sense of disorientation as she learned that in art school, there was no “right” or “wrong” way to do things, and they weren’t focused so much on results as on process. She was particularly concerned about the fact that there would be no grades, because how else could she be assured that she was successfully overachieving? She said she cried, or wanted to cry, nearly every day, as she began to unlearn everything she thought she knew.
Going to art school often unpacks and unravels the mind, leading to new realizations about oneself that are far outside the specific domain of art. But I didn’t know that when I started last fall; I was just focused on becoming a successful photographer in the next 11 months.
I was in for a surprise.
…..
You can read the next excerpt here.
…..
I intend for the foreseeable future for my posts to remain free, including the excerpts from Born Again. But if you’d like the full book, you have two options:
You can purchase it directly from Blurb. (Today and tomorrow only, it is 15% off at Blurb.com! Just use code FEBFLASH at checkout February 2 and 3.)
Or, for a limited time only, I am offering a FREE copy to all new Yearly subscribers to this newsletter! This is a $20 value—and I’ll even cover the cost of standard shipping.
(Note: The Substack back-end tech appears to be unable to accommodate the logistics of this offer, so I will reach out to you directly after you subscribe to get your shipping details and then place the book order for you myself.)
Born Again is intended for mature readers who are at least 18 years old.
If you have thoughts about how I could make that happen, you know where to find me!
I’m not sharing the names of the commenters, since none of these sentiments were given with the intent of being shared publicly.
Looking forward to getting my hands on your book. Witnessing your personal and artistic evolution through your posts, photos and writing is a gift. Thank you for sharing your vulnerability with us. Somehow being human can seem so complex and our emotional experiences are universal. I believe that the beauty of art is that it can capture, translate, and communicate the many complexities of life and being human. And it can help others to see, experience, and understand themselves better in the process. Looking forward to reading more.
oh michael, I'm so glad you made it to Italy for this part of your journey. Moving to a foreign place (which might not necessarily require a passport and an airplane, but I'm all for international adventures) does have a way of getting you to focus on what is really important. Everyone said I should face my demons and accused me of trying to escape when I left NYC 37 years ago (uh... nope and yea) and that I might never come home and then where would I be? (still in Rome, thank you very much!).
I haven't seen enough of your photography to judge, but the little of your writing I've seen tells me that you are a writer, and a good one. xoxo H.