About Tales From The Family Crypt

If you are like many people, you’ve experienced some family dysfunction. Tales From The Family Crypt is for you. And, if you’ve been fortunate enough to avoid family dysfunction (like maybe you were raised by wolves in the woods!), but you still like interesting stories, Tales From the Family Crypt is also for you. On this blog we’ll muse about what makes families tick and what brings them to a screeching halt. Along the way, we’ll laugh, we’ll cry and we may even learn a thing or two.

Author Deborah Carroll (Enjoy my Amazon Author Page at this link) has written two parenting books and many educational publications for newspapers. Now she’s musing about something very close to home, the extreme dysfunction in her extended family. It’s like fiction, only more bizarre. Tales From the Family Crypt is available on Amazon by clicking here. If you check out the page, be sure to read the negative reviews. The positive ones are terrific, the negative ones are just funnier.

Currently working on a nonfiction picture book which is going to change the way kids see grandparents, I hope. I was reading to my grandson when I  discovered something. No one I know fits the typical “grand” profile. While in real life my “grand” friends are everything from aviators to zoo keepers, and they look amazing and diverse, in books they all fit a similar profile– they bake, they rock (in chairs, not in a cool metaphoric way), they sit, they garden, they fish or golf and they do it all with paunches and ponchos and very little panache. This gives me an inspiration. I want to create a children’s book about real-life grandparents, not your mother’s grandmother (Not that there’s anything wrong with that or with any of the aforementioned grand activities shown in today’s books. It’s just that the world of grandparents today is so much more interesting than that.), I want to show kids what us Boomer Grands are really like. I want to showcase the grandparents who are anything from artists to Zamboni drivers or anything in between that shows a vibrant and vivacious attitude about life, the grands who work  jobs with passion, or teach and reach young people, or are retired and refired, or engage in a zestful hobby or love fashion, or may be geniuses with words, or work to better a community, or in any way turn stereotypical grandparenting on its proverbial ear. I’m collecting stories and photos from folks who’d like to be included in the book. I will collect the photos and stories about these real people, rewrite their stories in rhyme in an A-Z book format, accompany the photos with lively, fun, and colorful illustrations, and develop a wonderful and important book.

Grands! From A to Z, Everything a Grandparent Can Be! (Working Title and Sub Title) If you’d like to be included, send me an email @ dcc120652@gmail.com.

I mean does this guy look anything like the grandparents you see in children’s books?

kingdance

I’ve also written a few other books  you might find interesting.

Raising Amazing Children (While Having a Life of Your Own) is a manual for parenting made a bit easier but using everyday situations as teachable moments for your kids. Housework, shopping, chores, traveling, you do all of these, why not find ways to share them with the kids?

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And speaking of kids, Sybil Was Silly But Willie Wasn’t will delight your amazing children.

It’s an adorable story about a little girl, her brother and her dog. Enjoy it for just $.99.410ifezPcPL._SL500_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-big,TopRight,35,-73_OU01_SS75_SS75_

Finally, if you’d like to contact me, feel free to send me an email dcc120652@gmail.com. Love to hear from you!

56 thoughts on “About Tales From The Family Crypt”

  4. Thanks for reading my post, Parkinson’s, the Starry Night and Creativity! Since all families seem to be dysfunctional, I;m going to follow you back so I can get some pointers!

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  6. Thank you for visiting my blog Flights of Fancy, and for following me. I took a look at your Amazon reviews and couldn’t stop laughing (sorry). I wonder if that MISC person realizes how interesting he is making your book. In any case, I’ll follwo you back.

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    1. I love your laughter. MISC learned a lot when Amazon deleted his comments! I kind of miss them; they were quite amusing. But they left his review in which he compares me to Hitler so that still gives readers a pretty good sense of the family members I was dealing with. MISC is my brother-in-law. I think he meant to label himself anonymous but chose miscellaneous erroneously!

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  7. Hi, Debby.
    Thanks for the follow. We share a great deal in terms of writing about our families. In my case, the insistent urge to write about family matters at this time in my life (retired, early 70s) came largely because it was time. Both parents gone. Retired, with nothing to lose. But mainly because there are connections between my upbringing and young women who are vulnerable to being trafficked. In fact, the connections run all the way through my life. I like making connections. It helps me know myself, and gives me language to tell my story in my own words. Not against anyone, but on behalf of myself. I applaud your courage. Silence was my survival skill. I’m not silent any longer.
    Cheers!
    Elouise

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    1. I understand silence as a survival skill but I am so happy you no longer have to use it. Silence rarely satisfies and beyond that it seems your message is powerful and important. Good work. I look forward to reading more of your words.

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  8. I am writing a memoir myself and it too is about my immediate and extended family. Memoir is a challenging genre indeed for me and at times I wonder about the ethics of making real people (in this case, my family) ‘characters’, without their consent. Although I want to respect their privacy, unfortunately I can’t tell the story of my upbringing in isolation, because I grew up among them. I’m just curious, did you experience that gnawing feeling that maybe you should just leave it or turn your story into fiction rather somehow?

    Thanks again for following my blog, I’m now following you too.

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    1. Your questions are likely in the mind of everyone who writes memoir, especially those about family. It’s a dilemma. You have a right to tell your story but what if that story involves others who may be unhappy with the story being told? For me, it was resolved in this way. My memoir is about what happened as each of of my parents and my husband’s parents died. With each death our siblings got more desperate and their acts became more and more despicable and, honestly, more like fiction than reality. So I wrote the story but I waited until the last of the parents had died out of respect. Our siblings don’t speak to us anyway, as a result of the family dysfunction so I no longer cared about their reactions to the story coming out. Sometimes I think, “Well, if you didn’t want the world to know what you did or what you are really like, then maybe you shouldn’t have done the things you did.” But if I still had any of those people in my life, I don’t think I could have published the book. So, again, you have a right to tell your story. I had to tell mine, I had kept silent for my whole adult life. If you are similarly driven, tell yours. Write it and then you can choose your next step in terms of publishing accordingly. Good luck.

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      1. Wow, what a lovely, detailed reply. Exactly what I needed and more. Thank you! I will certainly digest it all and hopefully make a decision that I can live with in the end.

        I’ve read an excerpt of your book on Amazon and I hope to get hold of the whole book. Although this is certainly a challenging genre, when done well, the story becomes bigger than us or our families. This is what I hope to achieve in the end. Thanks Debby.

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  9. Hi Debby, Thank you for stopping by my blog. I stopped by your Amazon page for Tales from a Family Crypt. After reading the reviews, I am sure I’m going to enjoy reading this book!

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    1. I’ve actually been spending some time on your blog and it’s wonderful. The writers you’ve shared are all compelling. I expect to be stopping by repeatedly. I’d love to hear your thoughts after you read my book and thanks so much for taking the time to read it. So glad the “Hitler” review didn’t turn you off!

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  10. Hi again Debby. I love your site – great theme you have chosen. I love simple, and its beautiful. I really like your blog and sense of humour and will likewise follow. I’ll definitely read your book also – sounds like it is a great read! All the best and am looking forward to growing our connection 🙂

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    1. So sweet! I totally agree; I think our future connections are going to be great. Thanks for planning to read the book. That would be fantastic and if you do and have a moment, it would mean a great deal to me if you’d write a review on Amazon.

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  11. You too. So far, so good for today. Spent it with my husband and his friend of more than 50 years. Watching them act like the five-year-olds they were when they met is always a good day. You have a good one, too.

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    1. Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Sally! I will follow your very clear directions (lovely) and get it all together to send to you tomorrow. So nice of you to check out my reviews and invite me. Thanks for your kind words about my blog as well. I must admit I’m having a lot of fun writing it. Really enjoyed visiting your blog today. Funny, interesting, uplifting and I’m hooked and looking forward to more. 🙂

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  15. It was nice to “meet” you today at the party and find your blog. Interesting stories that you have to share about your family which is always an engaging topic. I look forward to reading more of your adventures. Happy blogging, Cheryl

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  17. Hi Debby, pleased to meet you. Thanks for following Odyssey of a Novice Writer. 🙂

    I am going to download your book, Tales from the Family Crypt. It sounds fascinating.

    It occurs to me that the majority of my short fiction pieces are about dysfunction, and generally touch on dysfunctional families. Well, the family is a microcosm of the world, so I guess that’s not too surprising. I think Tolstoy said it best in Anna Karenina: All happy families are alike; each unhappy faimily is unhappy in its own way.” Perhaps that is what makes all the many stories about difficult families so compelling. Each is unique in cause and effect.

    I look forward to following your blog and reading your thoughts as well as the books you publish.

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    1. I totally fell in love with your blog and your writing this morning. You’re brilliant with words and images and I guess I’ll find this out as I follow you but why oh why haven’t you written a novel? I want to read it so if you need beta readers when you do craft the next great work, please reach out to me. It’s funny you quote Tolstoy. In my first draft of Tales I ended with that quote. It changed over time and wasn’t in the final draft but it hovered over me all the years I worked on the book. I am thrilled you’re going to read it and I would love to know what you think. Dysfunction rules much of our world. Hmm… Dysfunction Rules. Might be the name of my next work….

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      1. Thank you for your kind words! I suspect we shall be great friends. 🙂 I did download your book and look forward to reading it.

        Regarding my novel writing, it’s a sad fact that family commitments and work often sap much of my energy. I’m still looking for that happy medium of work, sleep, family, physical activity and writing… I suspect I won’t find it until I stop working full time, which I hope to do in a year or two.

        Having said that, I have been playing with the idea of seeing if I can get my act together and try the National Novel Writing event held each November. Encourage me! 😀 😀

        Thanks for the kind words about my blog and writing. You’ve made my day!

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  19. Hi Deborah–I want to thank you for stopping in over on cookiecrumbstoliveby and for now wanting to follow along on my life’s little adventures—-somewhere in your readings, you must have picked up on my dealing with my aging dad and stepmom—
    When I retired from teaching 3 years ago, Dad had been diagnosed with dementia / Alzheimer’s, etc
    I started the blog as a transition from spending 31 years in the classroom to suddenly not being in that very static routine— as I still felt I had things to say and share. My life is reflected in the blog–the good, the bad, the ugly, and then the rest—
    Between dealing with a young married, still in college, only child, to my dad and step mom life is certainly busy, interesting and trying.
    I look forward to reading more of your “adventures” as well as misery certainly loves a confidant 🙂
    blessings—Julie

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    1. Julie, it is my pleasure to “virtually” meet you. I did see a bit of your bio on the blog and sensed we had some important things in common. I think we’ll have some great times exchanging deep thoughts!

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  20. Thanks for dropping by and following. I wonder who doesn’t come from a dysfunctional family? Makes for interesting writing, doesn’t it? The families in my novel may be fictional, but their situations are not. Keep writing.

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    1. I will definitely check out your books. People ask me why I didn’t fictionalize my story. Two reasons, I say. One, I didn’t feel the need to protect the guilty. 🙂 Secondly, no one would find the characters believable! Only real people can screw up this badly! I have met an awful lot of people who are swapping their dysfunctional family stories and maybe only one or two who can’t identify any dysfunction in their family tree.

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  23. Sweet. I’ve opted not to participate in awards at this point because they seem a bit time consuming and I’m a tad over scheduled as it is but I so appreciate the thought.

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