In Love In The Time Of Contempt Joanne Fedler won’t tell you how to be the ‘perfect’ parent. She’s not a psychologist or an academic. But she is the mother of two teenagers, and she knows how it feels to be the parent of someone sprouting hair, zits and attitude all over the place.

This is a gritty, hilarious look at the day-to-day interactions with teenagers, and the tussled, frazzled and complex business of remaining mature while supporting someone to become an adult.

Fedler shares her philosophy that we are meant to parent imperfectly – our mistakes are the start of the important conversations we need to have with our kids. She guides us through enduring intermittent bouts of contempt and not taking it personally, picking the fights that are worth having, and surviving the journey from frustration, to confusion, to elation and back again.

Love In The Time Of Contempt is a funny, poignant account of the dramas and delights of parenting teenagers who know it all, who don’t yet have a fully functioning brain and who desperately need us to parent them – just not in the way we’re used to.

We either think our lives are so special that everyone should be interested in what's happened to us, or so ordinary that we can't imagine anyone would care. The truth lies somewhere in between: yes, we are all special, and no, people will not care-unless we write with them in mind. Joanne Fedler, a beloved writing teacher and mentor, has written Your Story to help all people, even those who don't necessarily identify as "writers," value their life stories and write them in such a way that they transcend the personal and speak into a universal story. She shows how to write from your life, but for the benefit of others. Filled with practical wisdom and tools, this book tackles: - mind-set issues that prevent us from writing - ways to develop trust (in yourself, the process, the mystery) - triggers or prompts to elicit our own stories - Joanne's original techniques for "lifewriting," developed over a decade of teaching and mentoring ... and much more "Joanne understands the writer's loneliness," says one such writer whose life she's touched, the award-winning author Nava Semel. "In this book she has created a menu of encouraging possibilities on how to overcome our fears and dig deep into our souls, so that our true voice can emerge."

When it comes to teenagers, truth is way scarier than fiction. Joanne Fedler draws upon her own current experiences as the parent of two teenagers, as well as interviews with other parents of teenagers to explore some of the numerous issues that one confronts as a parent of a teenager. In Love in the Time of Contempt, she skilfully guides us through the myriad of issues that come before you - from their changing, developing bodies, drinking and drugs, sex, friendships, appearance, relationships within the family, attitudes and ethics, schooling and authority and more. In her exploration of these issues and how they may manifest in our children, Joanne highlights how so much of our dealings with our teenagers is really about dealing with ourselves and being honest about our reactions. In turn we too examine our own values and behaviours to understand our lives together. Love in the Time of Contempt provides comfort and support as the reader recognises the real behaviours portrayed in the book (you are not alone!), and whilst there are not often easy answers to troubling behaviours, understanding goes a long way and empowers the parent to provide the right level of support in the best interests of all. How much and how little are questions which plague every parent and this book's wise counsel helps us to determine that for themselves.

By the time Joanne Fedler's 40th birthday loomed, she'd had it with several trouble-makers who'd been wreaking havoc in the kingdom of her heart for too long. It was time to deport them. In what she initially took to be an unrelated impulse, she figured she could also start to care again about how she looked before the fatty deposits on her rear-end fossilized. And that's where the idea behind "When Hungry, Eat" began. Or so she thought. She started a new eating plan ("a ridiculous euphemism for self-imposed starvation") which took her on a route to a much Greater Hunger--as Lauren van der Post calls it--which had nothing to do with food. What began as a mission to get back into a bikini became a pilgrimage back to faith, which had not been on either her food list or her itinerary. "When Hungry, Eat" is a celebration of unexpected spiritual wisdom, small portions, and the gifts of hunger.

Two experts tackle the big questions about intimacy and relationships, in this book that aims to change how you think about long-term love

We can't get enough of doomed lovers torn apart by betrayal, taboo, and violence--as long as they stay on the screen or the page. In our own beds we want the happy ending. But all around us, divorce statistics rocket as the hopes of lonely singles plummet. In an age of financial and political uncertainty, love is the only thing left to believe in. So why do we give up on it so easily? Through interlocking stories that are moving, funny, and all too familiar, Joanne Fedler and Graeme Friedman combine their years of personal and professional experience to tackle the toughest of questions around intimacy, such as "How does romance sour into incompatibility? Are men really frightened by intimacy? Why don't women understand that sex is intimacy? Is staying in an unhappy relationship better than being alone? How do we keep passion and intimacy alive with the same person over time"? Finding and keeping intimacy is a massive challenge, but it's not impossible, once you know the secrets.

When Mia was a child she told Asher that the Dreamcloth took away their nightmares. It is 1994 when Mia finally returns home. A strong-willed journalist embroiled for the last decade in ravaged conflict zones; she arrives in Johannesburg to confront a harrowing, violent human drama that has plagued her family for three generations. And hidden in her bra, close to heart, is the Dreamcloth. When Mia finally retrieved the small patchwork cloth of beads and lace from Asher, the depraved man she believes caused her father's death a decade ago, she unwittingly regained the only clue to resolving a expansive tale of wretchedness and anguish that has haunted her family for decades. The cloth, woven in the 1920s by a seamstress in a grim shtetl in Lithuania, veils the mystery of a forbidden love affair that has haunted Mia's paternal grandmother, Maya, as she fled anti-Semitic Europe and will lead Mia to a devastating truth beyond her imagining. In Mia's search to reconnect with the places and people she left behind, she journeys through her childhood as she makes sense of the injustices of her world through her relationships with her beloved father, Issey, her nanny, Sarafina, and best friend, Grace. But the first person she will have to face is her distant mother, obsessed with the roses in her perfectly manicured, northern suburbs garden.

At thirty-four, Faith Roberts isn't so different from most women her age. Okay, so her cleavage is rather disappointing and she's still single, but she has a busy job, the usual dysfunctional family, a clinically depressed best friend and a younger sister who is getting breast implants as an engagement present. Practically normal.Faith used to think about falling in love, but that was a long time ago. As a counsellor in a women's crisis centre, she's heard one too many love-gone-wrong stories so it's hard for her not to give up on the big things, like love, hope and trust-let alone the chance of getting a decent haircut or meeting a halfway normal bloke.Then one night, an odd twist of fate finds Faith in a situation that transforms her life, bringing her to finally understand what she has always needed to know: that before you can save others, you have to save yourself.A beautifully written, big-hearted love story, Things Without a Name will resonate with any woman who's thought about giving up on love and hope, but chooses not to.