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Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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OUT WITH IT

Katherine Preston

How Stuttering Helped me Find my Voice

A vividly powerful memoir of a young woman who fought for years to change who she was until she finally found her voice and learned to embrace her imperfection.
Imagine waking up one day to find your words trapped inside your head, leaving you unable to say what you feel, think, want, or need. At the age of seven that happened to Katherine Preston. From that moment, she began battling her stutter and hiding her shame by denying there was anything wrong. Seventeen years later, exhausted and humiliated, she made a life-changing decision: to leave her home in London and spend a year traveling around America meeting hundreds of stutterers, speech therapists, and researchers. What began as a vague search for a cure became a journey that debunked the misconceptions shrouding the condition, and a love story that transformed her conception of what it means to be normal. Shedding light on an ancient condition that affects approximately 4 million people in the United States and 60 million people worldwide, Preston has assembled an anthology of expertise and experience. In addition to specialists in the field, she interviews celebrities, writers, musicians, social workers, psychologists, and financiers—men and women from all walks of life battling their difficulties with speech. A heartwarming memoir and a journalistic feat, Out With It is more than a chronicle of one of the most prevalent speech problems in the world; it’s a story about understanding yourself, and learning to embrace the voice within.

Katherine Preston lives in Brooklyn as a writer and public speaker. She is the Creative Director of ExchangeMyPhone.
Available products
Book

Published 2013-04-01 by Atria

Book

Published 2013-04-01 by Atria

Comments

Out With It is a highly personal, vivid, and affecting account of one woman's journey from disability to wholeness through self-acceptance. It is sure to engage anyone who has traveled down a kindred path.

Katherine Preston is an extraordinary new literary voice and a triumphant storyteller of her generation. How she got there is a captivating tale and we are all the richer for her experience and her arrival.

OUT WITH IT is both a compassionate, unflinching memoir and an anatomy of life with a stammer. Katherine Preston offers affirmation for the millions of us who live with a speech disfluency and practical insight for those who don't . I hightly recommend this astute and engaging book.

Katherine Preston is an upbeat and inspiring example of how to deal with a problem that concerns so many and yet is acknowledged by so few. Out With It deserves the widest possible audience.

A frank, encouraging, and fresh exploration of a problem that's more widespread than we think. Out With It is a welcome addition to the small body of literature on this fascinating and mysterious subject.

Katherine Preston's memoir is an astute and personal exploration on the human experience.... A must-read.