About
Sondra graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy as a ballet major, studied musical theatre at Carnegie Mellon University, and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from University of Phoenix. She has served as judge in various writing competitions, and is a member of Authors Guild of America, Story Circle Network, National Association of Memoir Writers, North Carolina Writers Network, and Writers’ League of Texas. She lives in a log cabin in the woods of North Carolina with three cats and nine rescue dogs. Her husband of fifteen years considers himself to be a rescue as well. She enjoys cycling, beekeeping, forest farming, organic gardening, and caring for her botanical sanctuary.
She may be reached on her website at SondraRBrooks.com.
Featured Work
Not Good Enough Girl: A Memoir of an Inconvenient Daughter
Amidst the control, confusion, and chaos caused by her eight-times-married mother, this author’s story spans the extreme emotions of a mother-daughter relationship, touching on cyclical family dysfunction, addiction, and forgiveness.
Beginning at the age of five, Sondra spends decades auditioning for the role of her authentic self. Her dazzling mother casts her as confidante and co-conspirator in her affairs and serial marriages. Sondra vacillates between fierce anger toward her mother—who does nothing to protect her from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse—and a desperate need for her love and approval.
As an adult, Sondra enters into and stays in a toxic marriage for years, engaging in affairs with married men rather than divorcing. When therapy and AA eventually propel her out of the sense-deadening haze of alcohol and cigarettes, she summons the courage to tell her husband she plans to leave him. He reacts by playing on her biggest fear, telling her, “You’re going to turn out just like your mother.”
Sondra attempts to establish a sober and separate identity, but tensions between her and her mother further increase when she marries someone new—a man who displaces her mother as the epicenter of her life—and her mother’s seventh marriage ends. During this time, traumatic childhood memories suddenly surface and a seismic shift occurs, freeing Sondra from her need for maternal connection. But establishing a life independent from her mother proves far more complicated than she could have imagined.
