Author Judy Staber says:
As a writer I use the maxim “Write what you know.” For years now I have been uncovering family histories. My two published books are based upon research and remembered facts:
I have written about my mother, and tangentially myself, in Rise Above It Darling the story of Joan White (2022). In 2010, I wrote about my unusual childhood: Silverlands Growing Up at the Actors Orphanage (2010).
I have written an Art-History mystery Casa Loca using events with my only aunt in southern Spain in 1981. Currently, with Emma Lee, I am writing the story of my great grandmother. With these last two, I link known facts with fiction.
I write poetry, essays , never forgetting 15 original Pantos, and I have written theatre reviews.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Rise Above It, Darling
The story of Joan White
Actor, Director, Teacher, Producer
and (sometimes) Mother
A biographical memoir published under my full name
Judy White Staber
Rise Above It, Darling (304 pages, 65 photographs) is available for $21.99 from:
- The Troy Book Makers www.shoptbmbooks.com
- The Chatham Bookstore chathambookstore.indielite.org
- The Bookstore in Lenox www.bookstoreinlenox.com
- The Drama Book Shop NYC https://www.dramabookshop.com
- Friar Tuck Books https://friartuckbookshop.com
- At the Rensselaer Amtrak Station
Events
Book Events for Rise Above It, Darling
Previous readings January 8, 2022 The Spencertown Academy, Spencertown, NY April 2, 2022 Malden Bridge Community Center for North…
About The Book
People have asked me how my mother felt about leaving us at Silverlands. I don’t know. This is not about my childhood. I have already written about that time: Silverlands Growing Up at the Actors Orphanage. This is about my mother and trying to understand her.
I realize this biography has a different slant, with her life uncovered and discovered by her daughter rather than “as told to…” This is not a memoir, except where I, the author, am directly involved. This is a biography of a woman who happened to be my mother. A woman who was fully immersed in her profession, often to the detriment of her daughters. When I began, I was only dimly aware of the depth and breadth of her achievements.Most people only remember the names of a few outstanding, well-publicized stars. Yet it is the work of talented and dedicated performers like my mother, working constantly in major and minor roles, and as mentors and teachers, who support a vibrant theatre world.
Unlike most mothers and wives of her day, she knew little of the life of childrearing and housekeeping, beginning with her unusual childhood. She was a force unto herself and any regrets she may have had, she kept to herself.
Hers was a fascinating life, especially to anyone wanting to know about the life of a strong-willed woman who was hard-working in both the British and North American worlds of theatre for sixty-five years. View the Joan White Wikipedia page.
What people are saying about
“Rise Above It, Darling”
Previous Published Work
ABOUT THE BOOK
Silverlands
Born into a theatrical family in London during World War II. After family upheavals, her mother placed Judy, not quite four, and her sister, seven, at the Actors Orphanage in Chertsey, a town in Surrey south of London. She was to remain there for twelve and a half years. When she was eleven, her mother immigrated to Canada, her sister went a year later. Eventually she, too, came to America at sixteen when the orphanage closed and all her childhood friends were scattered around the world.
Silverlands is the story of her childhood and about the Orphanage, a story touched by the glamor of the theatre and such notables as Noël Coward, Laurence Olivier and Richard Attenborough, but also filled with the sadness that come when families are torn about by ill-fortune and careers. It is the story of resilient children who weren’t orphans, but were orphaned for a time by their parents’ profession – The Theatre; and how the members of the profession too care of their own, and still do today through The Actors’ Children’s Trust.
The Actors Orphanage was a unique institution and childhood at Silverlands was different from the norm: for some it was too different, but for Judy it was the only childhood she knew and she thrived and grew there.
