Everything changes during your eighties--except the traits that make you special: your curiosity, your sense of humor, your love of family. The rest can be handled. This is a book about coping; with humor and insight it addresses issues such as stubborn arthritis, spotty memory, bewildering bladders, and precarious balance. But it’s also a treatise on overcoming. Readers will discover a host of “tricks” for smoothing out life’s bumps and dealing with most of what ails them.We all learned how to parent by experience, but unfortunately we can’t learn about aging that way. Maralys’ book presents a primer on aging that is practical, humorous, and factual. I have searched years for a resource on aging for my patients and now I have found the perfect one. Thank you, Maralys, for helping all of us age with dignity, grace, and humor. —Robin K. Dore, M.D.

So You're Eighty … Wow!: Time to use your bag of tricks

Wills, Maralys

Parenting & Relationships

Lemon Lane Press

Hey, Turning Seventy is not so bad! Suddenly you discover better ways to exercise . . . you learn you can "eat out", guilt-free . . . you see grandkids becoming your best friends . . . you find new ways to fire up your brain . . . you learn that travel, while different, can still be fun. To top it off, you realize EVERYBODY has trouble "getting things open"—so you might as well laugh about it.

So You're Seventy ... So What?: How to Love the Years You Thought You'd Hate

What can possibly go wrong in a household led by a mother who is educated, rich, and beautiful? As Maralys and her brother, Allan, learn, the answer is everything. Thanks to a mother who marries seven times, the children are dragged from city to city and husband to husband. Yet this memoir proves that youthful willpower can prevail over powerful adversity. "Maralys Wills, part of an extraordinary--ordinary--family, lived a yo-yo life, growing up in fourteen different locations. She experienced wealth and deprivation, moments of warm hugs and seasons of stunning neglect. At the center of the story is her loving, impetuous, generous, selfish, oversexed, often-absent Mother, a woman lucky enough to raise--or sometimes raise--two brilliant children. Maralys is now a full-time author with a marvelous memory, a wise but childlike sense of humor, a chronic lust for adventure, and a lasting trust in the ultimate good. It's a life lesson." --Stephanie Edwards, Emmy-wining TV/Radio Commentator

The Tail On My Mother's Kite: a memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Revenge of the Jilted Draperies is a potpourri of brief, humorous, or poignant observations by an author with a long history of both comedy and tragedy. Her family's tragedies are captured in her memoir, Higher Than Eagles, and her wry wit shines in A Circus Without Elephants a memoir about life with her six athletic and inventive children. In the tradition of humorist Erma Bombeck, these essays by Maralys Wills often spur laughter, or sometimes tears, but always are presented with warmth. The title story, "Revenge of the Jilted Draperies" presents a hilarious scene in which husband, Rob, is attacked by the family’s rejected curtains and they won’t let go, even in a public place. Maralys Wills has lived three different lives: Mother of six children, teacher of novel-writing and memoirs, and author of sixteen books. “Maralys Wills’ new collection of stories is so much fun! Each one is different—some reflective and serious, others humorous—but they are all entertaining. I found myself so amused as I carried on that I was glad I wasn’t reading them in public. The funniest one for me was the title story, “Revenge of the Jilted Draperies.” I had tears rolling down my face, and I couldn’t read it out loud to my husband because I was laughing so hard I was unintelligible.” —Irene Berardesco, B.A. “Maralys Wills—she of Higher than Eagles and Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead fame—has done it again. She charms her way into our hearts and right down to our funny bones with whimsical musings that will rip at your heart strings or make you laugh out loud.” —Jan Murra, Author, Castoff “Maralys’ stories are always current and relevant to life today. She injects humor, wisdom, and honesty—and her writing style keeps me interested and wanting more.” —Molly Nunn

Revenge of the Jilted Draperies: And Other Sweet-and-Sour Stories

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Higher Than Eagles: The Tragedy and Triumph of an American Family

The family was changed by a boy-a stubborn, relentless, infuriating-but ingenious and creative boy. He was the first in a family of six children, with parents who initially balked at his fantasies. Yet almost everything that captured the world's attention-double-decker bicycles, international hang gliding records, the drama of "flying" a motorcycle, a British championship won by landing on one foot-all these were part of young Bob Wills's singular vision. Prevailing against all the people who called him impractical, a dreamer, Bobby became a legend in the fledgling sport of hang gliding. Sports Illustrated wrote of him, "Like Paul Elvstrom, the great Danish sailor, he seems now to own a special part of the wind that not even he can see and no one else can find." In the end, Bobby not only profoundly changed his family and the pilots who flocked to emulate him,he did what he'd intended all along. He lived a life that had never been lived before.

Sports & Outdoors

Wills, Chris

Biographies

A treasure trove of sage advice for the new writer packaged in easy to digest and fun to read anecdotes. Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead offers real world suggestions for writing novels, or non-fiction and turning them into saleable works. Maralys Wills, creative writing teacher and author of 12 books in many genres, a shares from her own experience the dos and don'ts of getting published. "Maralys Wills's guidance has been imperative to my writing career. Her unique ability to teach, along with her knowledge as a multi-published author, got results in her classes. Nineteen published authors in our class alone. As a student, she kept me focused with her positive encouragement. She didn't just grade my work; she critiqued, edited, and most importantly, praised it. A book by Maralys Wills on the subject of writing is a must!" -- Patricia Thayer (author of 21 books)

Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead: The Bumpy Road to Getting Published

Reference

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

Jenny Winfield and Scott McCabe were never meant to be together. She is a free-spirited, unpredictable journalist, and he’s an uptight airline pilot—too rigid for someone like Jenny. When they jointly inherit a shaky hang gliding company, they are forced to bend and compromise … which is never easy. Eventually, hoping to win a $100,000 prize, they fly together in a dangerous, high-altitude contest. Only under strange circumstances do they at last discover their love has become greater than their differences. “This is a book for all readers, whatever their preferred genre. I was captivated by the story’s depth, by the believable characters with their realistic conflicts, and by the exciting flying scenes. This is a story where love doesn’t come easily to these two very different people. Thus their narrative felt remarkably like real life.” —Irene Berardesco, B.A. “Riding thermals and downdrafts, the author takes us on a grand adventure. Along with her distinctive, often quirky characters, we struggle to save a doomed hang gliding company. Under man-made wings, we take the ride of a lifetime, soaring into dangerous heights, feeling the heroine’s terror … then her eventual exhilaration. Wills brought me along, infusing her novel with passion and romance. I was hooked from the first page!” —Paula Clark, MA, Therapist

Wait for the Wind

Literature & Fiction

An anecdote-rich saga about six generations in one family. Thanks to an unending drive for adventure, the Wills family experienced more than its share of both triumph and tragedy.

It's a Duck. And It's Dead!: A trail of adventure through six generations

Family Relationships

A collection of short essays by a retired trial attorney who enjoys watching the passing parade free of the shackles of convention, orthodoxy, or political correctness. This third volume is the follow up to his second collection: Gaining A Little Altitude: Leaving Ideology on the Ground, and the first volume, A View from the Hill: Trading the Courtroom for an Ivory Tower.

Scanning the Arena: Viewing the Contest from a Box Seat (Reflection and Retrospection)

Wills, Robert V.

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Books by Lemon Lane Press