Exciting news! Our Diaries, Ourselves: How Diarists Chronicle Their Lives and Document Our World, my book about why people write diaries and why other people read them (or want to) has been published by Beacon Press, of Boston. My 16-event book tour has taken me to book stores and libraries across the country where I’ve had fascinating conversations with people who write, read, or otherwise enjoy diaries/journals. Next stops this summer: Woodstock, Illinois and Empire, Michigan. Hope to see you there!
Our Diaries, Ourselves can be purchased at independent bookstores including Women and Children First and City Lit in Chicago, The Book Loft in Oak Park, Illinois, Read Between the Lynes in Woodstock, Illinois, Politics and Prose in Washington D.C., P&T Knitwear in NYC, RJ Julia and Possible Futures in Connecticut, Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Literati in Ann Arbor, Next Chapter Books in Detroit, Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor, Michigan, Village Well Books in Culver City, California, Books on the Bosque in Albuquerque, Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City and Beaverdale Books in Des Moines. Find other indies at: Bookshop.org for hardcover, e-book, and audiobook. It is also available from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Blending history, cultural commentary and memoir, Our Diaries, Ourselves challenges common assumptions about the diary (especially in the digital age); explores the evolving nature and value of diaries and diary-writing, especially for women; reports on why people read stranger’s diaries and how they use them; visits archives that preserve diaries (including European diary archives and U.S. women’s archives); investigates the potential health/creative/memory benefits of diary-keeping; and sheds light on diarists both famous and not.
The book was inspired by my decision to donate my diary, which I have written in daily for more than 50 years, to a women’s archive.
Based in Chicago, I am represented by WME, William Morris Endeavor.
I have decades of experience as an journalist based in the Midwest and on the East Coast, writing for newspapers and magazines, from The New York Times to The Guardian to The Des Moines Register; and writing for foundations and nonprofits including The Annie E. Casey Foundation (Baltimore) and The Aspen Institute (Washington D.C.).
My travel blog is: TakeBetsyWithYou. I am the author of the travel book Fun with the Family in Iowa (Globe Pequot Press) and three of my many travel articles were included in The New York Times 36 Hours USA & Canada (Taschen, 2014).
My freelance articles on current events, travel and culture have been featured in many publications including: The New York Times, TIME, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Real Simple, Better Homes and Gardens, WebMD and Delta Sky Magazine. I worked as a reporter, primarily for newspapers, including nine years at the Des Moines Register, and, before Iowa, in Boston, Stamford, CT, Wichita, KS, and Kansas City. A native of suburban Detroit, I graduated from Cornell University, with a history degree.
As a reporter, I have focused on issues affecting at-risk children, families and women including child care, workplace concerns, juvenile justice and child welfare. As a freelance writer, I continued this work as a writer sharing the on-the-ground impact of anti-poverty work supported by foundations, nonprofits and the public sector. For the Campaign for Grade Level Reading, I wrote about promising work across the country to increase the number of children from low-income families who read well by the end of third grade.
I moved in spring 2022 to Chicago after working and raising a family in Des Moines, with my husband, a veteran agriculture writer and editor. Contact info: brubiner@gmail.com
TakeBetsywithyou 