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Her children's book IN THE COMPANY OF BEARS won a 1994 Benjamin Franklin Award, was featured on a PBS-TV reading enrichment program, appeared on the ABC World of Discovery, and was featured in the Border's Books Christmas Catalog and was the best selling children's book of all time in the San Diego Zoo. Other children's books are: HALLELUJAH, A CAT COMES BACK, LEGEND OF THE GIANT PANDA, A TRAIN YOU NEVER SAW, and TIME OF THE WILD. TIME OF THE WILD was highly acclaimed by the children's book editor of Boston Globe and compared to Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree." DRAGONS GUARD THE ZOO is her most recent book and prized by elementary school teachers and librarians.
THE LITTLE CHAPEL THAT STOOD is considered by reviewers and teacher as the best children's book ever written about 9/11. It was chosen by the Smithsonian Institution as the feature book for its interactive 9/ll Project. It was declared a historical artifact by Duquesne University and was the subject of a doctoral thesis by M. B. Kerle. The thesis proved that after reading the book, school children talked about 9/11 less in terms of death and destruction, and more in terms of the courage and freedom of the American people. THE LITTLE CHAPEL THAT STOOD also inspired a New York City School Teacher, to start an organization called Youth USA to advocate the teaching of the U.S. Constitution in all New York City schools. The book was also read to the jury in the trial of the 20th hijacker to make the point that America has never been a victim, not even on 9/11. On that fateful day, everyone pulled together courageously, people risked their own lives to help strangers down the Tower stairs to safety, small children waved "thank you" signs to passing fireman. Even on 9/11 America was not a victim. The "Land of the brave and the free" proved itself again, a great nation.
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A. B. Curtiss is a board-certified cognitive behavioral therapist, diplomate of the board--psychology, certified hypnotist, an award-winning author of 12 books, and the creator of brainswitching, a system of mind exercises to get out of depression. Her self-published book ALL OUR GEESE ARE SWANS: A THERAPIST'S MEMOIR OF MANIC-DEPRESSION was bought by Hyperion and re-named. DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE. This book was the first to point out the significance of directed thinking and the process of pain perception in getting out of depression without drugs. Her book BRAINSWITCH OUT OF DEPRESSION, further expanded upon directed thinking to create an actual system called brainswitching which can get rid of any kind of depression without drugs. Her books have been translated in 5 languages including Japanese and Russian
Background of Author A.B. Curtiss |
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My writing career started with a course in adult education at a local high school in Ridgewood, New Jersey. The professor said that my op-ed piece deserved to be published so I sent it to my local paper, which, living so close to New York City, was The New York Times. So the first essay I wrote was published on the op-ed page of The New York Times and was picked up by The Boston Globe for its op-ed page the next day. I even got a telephone call from the Times editorial department saying "they would be proud to publish this beautiful piece of writing." Dozens of essays followed on the op-ed pages of other newspapers such as The Chicago Sun Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor and USA Today. My first children's book, IN THE COMPANY OF BEARS won a 1994 Benjamin Franklin Award, My first adult fiction, CHILDREN OF THE GODS, won a 1995 San Diego Book Award. My first adult nonfiction book, DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE was published by Hyperion. My children's book THE LITTLE CHAPEL THAT STOOD was the first children's book to be declared a historic artifact in it's year of publication (by Duquesne University) and became the subject of a doctoral thesis. It was also read to the jury in a life and death trial (the trial of the 20th hijacker (Zacharias Moussaoui.) I just assume this is a first for a children's book but I don't know for sure. Getting to know Author A.B. CurtissSince the age of four I knew I was supposed to write, but I was almost fifty years old before I figured out what I was supposed to say. Either the words only came then, or it was only then, when I was older, that I was finally able to hear them. Words are very finicky. If you don't pay proper attention to them and write them down immediately, they go away and never come back. Writing is my calling, the ground zero of my life, what I count on, cling to. Writing is where I am the most myself even though most of my life consists of doing things other than writing. I moved many times to follow my husband's career. When our five children were grown, I went to graduate school and became a cognitive behavioral therapist. It has been good for me, I think, that I ended up being a writer second and many other things first, so that I became more a person who sometimes writes than a writer who sometimes persons. Although writing is supposed to be a lonely craft, it is because I write that I never feel alone. I am always in the company of some imagined reader to whom I tell my stories; what I have done, or failed at, or suffered, or missed. The mistakes, the fears, the disappointments, the remorse that can break your heart and have you wondering about the worth of your soul are the writer's raw materials. There is something wonderful and exciting and magical about the craft of writing. If I pursue the truth of a thing faithfully enough and doggedly enough, then, and often from a completely unexpected direction, a little of that truth reveals itself to me and I write it down just as quickly as I can before it disappears forever. In these moments when something really works, when I get it just right, I still don't know where the magic of writing comes from. But I have discovered the magic to being an author. Only at the exact moment when you are at last able to give something away do you finally possess it for the first time. 
On the back flap of my first book I carefully listed all my credentials, my degrees and published works, and just for fun I also listed all my children’s and grandchildren’s names. Over the years as I signed books for people I found out that most of them didn’t care all that much about my credentials. What people always showed the most interest in was all those names. Here are two pictures of my family The first one is taken at our first family reunion in 2000. The second taken last year at the wedding of my oldest grandson. |
