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I am Gloria Eveleigh, Champion for abuse survivors and multi-award winning Author.
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AN ARTICLE IN THE LANCING HERALD ABOUT 'ONE SMALL WORD'
Author’s contact details:
T: 01903 765639
M: 07930411419
E: gloriaeveleigh@icloud.com
Press Release Gloria Eveleigh, Author of ‘One Small Word – Surviving childhood abuse’ receives coveted Book Excellence Award.
Lancing Author, Gloria Eveleigh’s ‘One Small Word – Surviving childhood abuse’ wins a Book Excellence Award in the Memoir category. Founded in Toronto, Ontario, the Book Excellence Awards is an international book awards competition dedicated to recognizing both independent and traditionally published authors and publishers for excellence in writing, design and overall market appeal. Previous Winners and Finalists of the Book Excellence Awards have doubled their book sales, garnered attention from film producers, received distribution in bookstores and increased their visibility and media attention.
Gloria’s book helps to reassure survivors of childhood abuse that, like her, they can recover from their trauma and turn the negativity around to lead a happy and positive life.
“I felt surprised and honoured when I was notified of the award,” says Gloria Eveleigh. “As an author, you work long and hard trying to get your book recognised, so to hear that this award recognised the quality of my writing as well as the book’s design and overall market appeal really blew me away. My book confronts the serious issue of childhood abuse and the way it affects the victim’s adult life, and it is written from my first-hand experience. I want it to help both survivors, their families, and the professionals who support them to recover from the knock-on effects of the abuse.” - which is why Eveleigh wrote the book.
‘One Small Word – Surviving childhood abuse’ is about the life of Frankie (the name Eveleigh used for herself in the memoir), who suffered sexual, physical and psychological abuse at the hand of her own father. It started before she was three years old and didn’t stop until she was fourteen. It wasn’t until Frankie decided in her late forties to train as a social worker and was on placement in a local authority team for people with learning disabilities, that she was first triggered. Two adult daughters of an elderly male client disclosed that their father had sexually abused them as children. At her next visit to the client she found herself wanting to strangle him and was advised to seek counselling, which she did. Readers journey with Frankie as she remembers her own abusive experiences and is able to analyse and link them to her, often inappropriate, adult behaviour. Eveleigh gives readers insight into the facts that child abuse is never the fault of the victim, that it subsequently affects their adult behaviour, and that there is a way to recover and lead a happy and positive life.
The book helps readers to better understand the ongoing psychological and emotional effects of abuse on a child even as they grow up and throughout their adulthood whether they are survivors themselves, their families, or social workers or other professionals working with them.
The book has already received some great reviews from industry leaders, including Jonah Meyer of US Review of Books who wrote:
"She still sees herself as unworthy of other people’s love . . ." There is a singular word, which, despite consisting of only two letters, takes a young girl fourteen years to be able to stand firm and say. That word is “no.” Eveleigh’s autobiographical story is that of childhood in a dysfunctional family, documenting the devastating trauma of years of both physical and sexual abuse by a father prone to violence, and where the writer’s mother, literally unable to stand up to him, is seen as essentially enabling such abuse. Through this heartfelt memoir, we learn how intimacy and relations with boyfriends and her husband later in life were drastically affected by the trauma that is childhood sexual violence. And yet, Eveleigh’s book is a testament to healing. As such, this book would well serve anybody who has or is experiencing an abusive family situation as well as professionals who work with victims of sexual or physical abuse. Over time, the author comes to terms with the violence, abuse, and neglect she grew up experiencing. Quite understandably, it takes a long time to realize that not one of those terrible episodes was her fault and that she has innate worth. Eveleigh writes with unfettered emotion, realistic dialogue, and familial detail, portraying the raw emotions of guilt, confusion, anger, fear, resentment, self-disgust, and, finally, self-acceptance. “The counseling has made a real difference,” she writes. “Just knowing that none of the abuse I experienced was my fault has taken away so much guilt. It has helped me to like myself more, and to understand why I behave in certain ways.” The author is to be commended for pouring her heart into the writing of a memoir which deftly tackles such sensitive subject matter, treating it with grace, wisdom, and insightful self-reflection. RECOMMENDED by the US Review”
Since publishing ‘One Small Word’, Gloria has written its sequel entitled ‘No – Sequel to One Small Word’ and is currently in the process of publishing a third book entitled ‘Shattered Pieces can Still Shine – Georgie’s story’, available on Amazon later in 2021 with her other books. A fiction novel, loosely based on a real-life story and set in Cumberland after WW2, the story still highlights child abuse. As a self-appointed champion for abuse survivors, all Eveleigh’s books are written with the aim of keeping this serious social issue high on the public agenda in order to break down the invisible wall that continues to prevent victims disclosing, in effect protecting the perpetrators.
About the Author: Gloria Eveleigh is the mother of three adult children and five grandchildren and lives in Lancing, West Sussex, where she served for three years as Chair of Lancing Parish Council. Her first career was as a research scientist, and then a social worker and manager. She didn’t start writing until she retired, and initially wrote and illustrated phonics-focused children’s picture storybooks. She is a Christian and actively champions the cause of abuse survivors on social media and through public speaking. To learn more about Gloria Eveleigh, visit her websites on gloriaeveleighauthor.co.uk or gloriaeveleigh.com
To buy the award-winning ‘One Small Word – Surviving childhood abuse: Visit Gloria Eveleigh’s page on Amazon.co.uk where all her other books can also be found.
About the Book Excellence Awards: Founded in Toronto, Canada, the Book Excellence Awards is an international book awards competition dedicated to recognizing both independent and traditionally published authors for excellence in writing, design and overall market appeal. Previous Winners and Finalists of the Book Excellence Awards have been New York Times’ best-sellers, spoken at the United Nations and TEDx, and have had their books optioned by movie studios. To learn more, visit: https://www.bookexcellenceawards.com.
ARTICLE FROM THE WORTHING & LANCING HERALD
A Lancing woman has released a novel based on her experiences of childhood abuse in the hope of helping others.
Isabella Kiperska
13th February 2019
Gloria Eveleigh, who is the chairman of Lancing Parish Council and was a social worker who worked with vulnerable people before she retired, said her book, One Small Word – Surviving Childhood Abuse, was already having an impact.
Victims of childhood abuse receive lifetime anonymity under the law. Mrs Eveleigh has chosen to waive that anonymity to speak to the Herald about her experiences.
The 71-year-old said she was ‘honoured’ to have been invited to submit the novel to the The Truth Project, part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. She said:
“That’s the best thing I could have hoped for. I wrote the book because I wanted to help others. Already it is having a huge impact, which is more than I could have hoped for.”
Mrs Eveleigh, who has written several children’s books in the past, said it took ‘quite a lot of courage’ to write and publish the novel, which is told from the point of view of a protagonist named Frankie.
“It was very difficult at the time because you actually relive it, you really dig down and one memory gives rise to another memory, so that was painful,” she said. “But it was very cathartic in the long term. Afterwards, I felt that I was kind-of free.”
Mrs Eveleigh said that when she was young there was ‘no support’, adding: “There was and still is a great stigma to talking about child abuse.”
Reading a book like this would have helped her when she was growing up and her self-esteem was ‘just about zilch’, she said, as it would have helped her understand that some of her behaviour was directly caused by her experiences.
“I think it would have stopped me feeling guilty,” she said. “I wanted to give a glimmer of light to the people that are part of the way through that journey.”
The novel, which is published by Urlink Print & Media and is available to purchase on Amazon.co.uk, was officially launched at an event at Lancing Parish Hall on Saturday, February 2. Some 60 people attended the event, which Mrs Eveleigh said was an ‘amazing’ night. “It was perfect,” she said.
To purchase a copy of the book, search One Small Word on Amazon.co.uk
Anyone affected by issues raised in this article can contact SupportLine for confidential support by calling 01708 765200.
INTERVIEW WITH DANNY PIKE ON BBC RADIO SUSSEX (April 2019)
LETTER FROM THE TRUTH PROJECT
I was honoured to be invited to submit 'ONE SMALL WORD - SURVIVING CHILDHOOD ABUSE' to THE TRUTH PROJECT - the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. See below the letter I received from the Inquiry:
