New Releases by Susie Bencen

Focusing on the fate of the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, this comprehensive history of the thirty year war over welfare shows how stubborn allegiance to the male-headed household undermined the struggle for economic justice.

The True Confessions of a Suicide Survivor
Fighting seven years of crippling depression in a chaotic dysfunctional family, Kerri can't imagine living another day without hope. She decides to end it all….!
In the wake of a failed suicide attempt, she is terrifyingly “imprisoned” in a Mental Health Hospital where blood on the ward is a daily occurrence. Finally being released, she lives under the threat of being returned unless she follows the rules. This new reality is very lonely as she is ostracized at school for what she has attempted to do and failed at. After all, no-one wants to talk to a freak!
In a bid to re-unite the family, her parents take her to sunny Florida for an amazing Disney World experience where she meets Trevor, the boy of her dreams. Then, she discovers, to her dismay -- he lives an ocean away from her!
Quickly falling in love, a long distance relationship ensues. In a time when email and texting does not exist can Kerri and Trevor keep their relationship going? Can Kerri re-build her life and get back to a new “normal”?
“Out of the Darkness and Into the Light” is Kerri's shocking, heartbreaking and sometimes funny account of self-discovery, acceptance, strength and love, sure to resonate in the hearts of all who read it.