Sue William Silverman

NEWS:

*The Lifetime Television movie of Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict will be RE-BROADCAST on MAY 26. Please check local listings and/or the Lifetime TV website for times in your area.

* The paperback edition of Love Sick (W. W. Norton) is now available. To order, please click on the bookjacket image on the left, in the side column. Thank you!

* Sue has just signed a new contract with the University of Georgia Press to publish a book for women writing memoir. It will be about the craft of writing as well as about the emotional concerns women face when telling family secrets. Check back for updates as well as the publication date. Please feel free to send me an email if you'd like a personal message when the book is available (suesilverman@charter.net).

* Sue's essay, "The Pat Boone Fan Club," has been selected to appear in The Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Nonfiction: Work From 1970 to the Present, now available on amazon.com.

*As a professional speaker and writer, Sue has appeared on many nationally syndicated radio and TV programs including “Anderson Cooper 360” on CNN; a John Stossel Special on ABC-TV; CNN-Headline News; the Montel Williams Show; the Ricki Lake Show; and both the U. S. and Canadian Discovery Channels. She is featured in the award-winning documentary “Pursuit of Pleasure.”

*Sue is on the faculty of the Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program at Vermont College.

ABOUT SUE:

I was born in Washington, D. C., where my father was a high government official in the Truman administration. Later, we moved to the West Indies where he was president of a bank. He was also a child molester. The juxtaposition of this double life—seemingly perfect in public, dark and scary in private—is what I write about in my memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You. In my second memoir, Love Sick: One Woman's Journey Through Sexual Addiction, I show how I replicated this double life as an adult. In public, all seemed fine—I attended Boston University, worked on Capitol Hill, was married. But this image was a mask that hid my secret world of sexual encounters with dangerous men, a shadowy life of obsession.

From about 1980 to 1992, I tried to tell my story as fiction. Looking back, I realize that the five or six (unpublished) novels I wrote during this time lacked an authentic voice. It was my therapist, ironically, who finally suggested I write my own story. At first I resisted. I had never considered nonfiction and thought I had nothing to say about myself. Finally, just to humor him (I told myself), I acquiesced, even though I believed I'd only be able to write a paragraph at the most. Maybe a page. The moment I began to write "Terror, Father," however, I felt as if I'd just learned to speak, that I heard my real voice for the first time. I completed the manuscript in three months. And even though it took much longer to write Love Sick, I was finally writing what I knew. One thing I most love about writing memoirs, is that they provide me the opportunity to meet many courageous women. In fact, the responses that mean the most to me come in whispered phone calls and handwritten notes from women who thank me for telling their stories, too.

In addition to writing, I am associate editor of the literary journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction as well as a professional speaker on the issues of child abuse, family dynamics, and addictions. I received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Aquinas College for my work in literature and child abuse victim advocacy. My memoirs have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Norwegian, and German.

For personal or professional contact, please e-mail me at suesilverman@charter.net