Article archive / December 2017
Originally published: . Volume 8, No. 12. Source pages: 12.
[Editor’s Note: Dr. Glanville has been traveling the South visiting libraries and bookstores so we asked her to tell us a little about her book series and how this trek got started.]
Journey to The Power of T.E.A.® Book Series by Susie Marie PhD®
My sister tells me that when we were little girls we would play “school” and that I was always “writing” books and pressing her to sit and listen to me read my stories. Today I am writing real books and selling them to libraries, schools, churches, bookstores, gift shops, individuals and professionals across the South.
Several years ago I bought some land and a home in rural Louisiana, far away from the big cities where I had lived all my life and where I had raised my children. That setting and the life I discovered there, rodeo arenas and fishing holes and hunting grounds, inspired my return to creating stories.
Before moving to the country I had helped a teacher in New Orleans prepare her emotionally stressed fourth graders for the first standardized achievement test in the public schools, the LEAP test. My program helped those students perform well, better than the other fourth graders at the school, and ultimately provided direction for my writing.
Once I settled in my house in the woods I wrote a handbook of twelve steps for psychological preparation for students, expanding beyond emotional issues to include basic cognitive and behavioral guidance, using the terms “thoughts” and “actions”, ultimately creating The Power of T.E.A.®, T for thoughts, E for emotions, and A for actions.
As I taught my new programs I began to use examples from the people, places, crops, and critters in my rural life to help teach the twelve steps, four steps each of thoughts, emotions, and actions, in my series. Farmers and lakes and brussels sprouts and pigs became some my favorite co-teachers.
Now, as Susie Marie PhD®, Country Lady, with Life Lessons from Mother Earth, I have a new business, South River Stories, Inc., through which I am writing and illustrating twelve books, one for each step. I also am including a Sound Psychology® lesson and one of my Musical Messages® songs to reinforce each step.
Recalling the cluster analysis I used for my dissertation, I found the books in my series fall into four categories. My books about patient thoughts, scared emotions, and above actions comprise the first cluster, “Time Suspended.” The remaining clusters are “Time Curtailed,” “Time Intense,” and “Time Eternal,” and each will have a thoughts, emotions, and actions book.
I recently published “Indian Santa, The True Story, ”the first book in the “Time Suspended” cluster, about the power of patient thoughts. My next two books, “Plantation Walking,” about the power of scared emotions, and “Lost Hero Found,” about the power of the “above” actions of prayer, meditation, sleep and dreams, are scheduled for release next year.
Lately I have been driving across Louisiana to Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, selling my book all along the way. On my website people I have never met have ordered my book. Closer to home I have sold books in waiting rooms, check- out lines, and parking lots. I even sold a book to someone in Russia.
I also have been enjoying doing book-signings and workshops, and my 2018 calendar is filling up quickly with more events. I am grateful for my years in psychology, happy that I have retired, and glad that I have found a way to reach families in such rewarding ways, beyond the traditional avenues of my profession.
Dr. Glanville as “Susie Marie PhD” at the Natchez Public Library. (Photo courtesy Dr. Glanville)
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.