Letters to Our Daughters is Sherry Blackman’s New Release. Sherry is an Award-Winning author of Call to Witness, and Tales from the Trail.
Sherry Blackman is an internationally published award-winning journalist and poet, whose work has appeared in the books, In the Company of Women by Brenda Hunter, PH.D. Writing from Life: Telling Your Soul’s Story by Susan Witting Albert, PH.D., and in the literary journal, Journal of New Jersey Poets. She has been a regular contributor to such international publications as Presbyterians Today, Presbyterian Outlook, The World & I magazine, For the Bride, and newspapers The Christian Science Monitor, and New Jersey’s largest newspaper, The Star Ledger, and The New Jersey Herald. Her work has also appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, and dozens of other international, national and regional publications. Blackman was a news correspondent for APBNews, an online news service in partnership with CNBC and MSNBC.
REV-IT-UP, Tales of a Truck Stop Chaplain is a collection of stories from the crossroads of saints and serial killers told by a chaplain who has served at a metropolitan truck stop since 2006. Sherry Blackman shows up again as a spiritual investigative reporter in this series of quick, graphic, gritty, and insightful tales of road warriors, those who serve them, and those who find themselves lost at different intersections of life. Stories that unveil the holy and the unholy, the humorous and the tragic, and illuminates a universal truth, that we all need and deserve to be seen, heard, cared for, loved, and nurtured.
Truck drivers—some 2 million strong—bring us 7 out of 10 items we depend on and spend one-half of their lives behind the wheel traversing deserts, mountains, lone stretches, main arteries, and blue highways, delivering the abundant life that most of us assume will always be within a Walmart reach. Without this industry, our economy would be paralyzed. Yet, most of us go about our daily lives without acknowledging these brave kings and queens of the highway.
Written in the tradition of Rilke’s Letters to a
Young Poet, this book is sure to become a classic.
During the 2020 pandemic, one thing held true: Scores of people headed out for a day hike on the Appalachian Trail (AT) as if being in the woods, immersed in beauty and mystery, immunized them against an unseen enemy. The Appalachian Trail (AT) became a hospital for souls locked up in quarantine, needing to breathe, stretch, and be nourished by the earth beneath their feet.
For decades, the Appalachian Trail (AT) has been a sanctuary for seekers, the tired and the lost; those hungry for renewal, the broken and the grieving; and those who want to face and answer questions they have lugged around with them in invisible backpacks. Questions like, what is next for me? Is there a God? Should I live or end it all? How can I liberate my life from what weighs it down? How can I forgive God?
This book pays tribute to those who dare such a grueling and soul-satisfying adventure. It tells the tales of those on a pilgrimage through insightful conversations and encounters, exploring and revealing what angels the hikers wrestle with in the wilderness who call out to name them again. This collection unveils the spirituality of any such journey in sometimes humorous, sometimes heart-wrenching portraits.
Tales from the Trail explores what it means to be human.
With 3,000 to 4,000 people attempting to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail a year, only about one in four succeed. About 3 million people visit part of the trail every year. On average, most thru-hikers start in the spring and finish in the fall, taking about six months to complete. Yet, millions dream of making the trek and spend years preparing to do so.
Call to Witness is the true story of one woman’s battle with disability, discrimination, and a leading pharmaceutical powerhouse. Jane Gagliardo was a throwaway employee, fired after working nearly a decade for a leading vaccine maker when her disability surfaced. Jane is fearless and impassioned, and her story will leave readers empowered to stand up for themselves, even if it means standing alone. This 2002 landmark case changed the law and challenges the way corporations do business today. This riveting dramatic account sheds fascinating insight into the world of vaccine production, both past and present, that will have every reader searching through their immunization record–this corporation literally runs in the veins of millions of Americans.
Here’s what people said about Blackman’s first book:
“Rev. Sherry Blackman is to be applauded for both her wonderful story-telling in the book, Call to Witness: One woman’s battle with disability, discrimination and a pharmaceutical powerhouse, and her advocacy and support for another amazing woman who had the courage to stand up against social injustice. This book and Jane Gagliardo’s story will stand as a monument for how one woman can change the face of the world.” Dr. Nancy O’Reilly, Psy.D. WomenSpeak.com and WomenConnect4Good Foundation, Inc. Keynote Speaker and Author of Timeless Women Speak: Feeling Youthful
“Call To Witness is a ‘must read’ for anyone who roots for the good guy. Author Sherry Blackman is a skilled and gifted writer who immediately draws you in with her exquisite prose and holds you captive until the last page. You can’t help but care deeply about this true story of a remarkable woman and the loving family who supported her in an almost impossible battle against a very powerful corporation, all the while taming a potentially fatal illness.” Toni DeMaio author of the forthcoming novel, I’ll Know You By Your Heart.
“In Call To Witness, Sherry Blackman shares the story of Jane Gagliardo, who demonstrates disability is not synonymous with weakness. Though small in stature Jane emerges as a powerhouse of personal strength and tenacity whose fiery passion for justice illuminated the path for other Americans with disabilities to free themselves from corporate arrogance and indifference. Sherry provides us, the reader, with a template with which to gauge our own abilities, and a challenge to rise triumphantly above our own limitations.” Jean Taylor
“Call to Witness testifies to the strength of the human spirit, and to the courage of what it means to stand alone against any of the Goliaths of our day. Jane Gagliardo is the hero of the voiceless and the invisible…. Sherry Blackman is passionate as is inviting as she moves us through this compelling plot….”
Dr. Wesley Ariarajah, author, professor, and the former Director of Interfaith Dialogue Program of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland
