Skin in the Game:
The Stories My Tattoos Tell
An Intimate Author Experience
Have you ever read my book?
I haven’t, either.
This podcast, a reading of Kelly J. Mendenhall’s memoir, is like attending a live author reading while listening to a podcast in your favorite listening spot, maybe in your comfiest clothes. Experience Mendenhall’s book, Skin in the Game: The Stories My Tattoos Tell, read by the author. The author and audience experience her book together; as Mendenhall explains, she doesn’t remember writing it.
On June 21, 2017, I worked my last day in an office job, out in the world.
I was losing my ability to walk. My steps were becoming smaller and smaller until I could only shuffle my feet a few inches at a time. Unfortunately, doctors didn’t believe me about my pain and other symptoms, so it took 2.5 years of fighting against medical gaslighting to discover that my spinal cord was being crushed by a mass of cells in my spinal canal.
It would take another year and a half to discover the “worst case of endometriosis my surgeon had seen in her entire career,” which was invading my abdomen, pelvis, and lower spinal canal.
From December 28, 2018, to October 2022, I survived six major surgeries. I had four neurosurgeries and two abdominal surgeries, including a medically necessary hysterectomy.
While navigating it all, I wrote a book. It was published on June 1, 2019.
Five days later, I got the news about the mass in my spinal canal and two upcoming neurosurgeries. And from there, well, you can imagine how hard it was to go out and promote the thing.
I am reading my memoir with you, my audience, for the first time in its entirety.
Much of it I don’t remember writing.
Join me for the highs and lows, rediscoveries, tears, and laughter.
It’s everything you want in an author reading, without having to leave your home.
Episode Eight: Chapter Nine: The Story of Us
“If you know as much about Boxers as a breed as I did when I adopted Rosebud, then you know approximately 5% of what you need to know to prepare for having a Boxer at home. They’re often referred to as the Peter Pan breed because they never grow up. They’re almost always as goofy and playful into adulthood as they are as puppies. Boxers, and especially deaf boxers, are prone to pretty severe separation anxiety. Beyond that, Boxers are susceptible to a myriad of health issues. And Rosebud is no exception to any of these. But my neuroses and her neuroses seemed to make us fit together just perfectly, like two jigsaw pieces in the fabric of the universe who spent an immeasurable amount of time waiting to find one another.”
Excerpt From
Skin in the Game: The Stories my Tattoos Tell
Kelly J. Mendenhall
This material may be protected by copyright.
This podcast, a reading of Kelly J. Mendenhall’s memoir, is like attending a live author reading while listening to a podcast in your favorite listening spot, maybe in your comfiest clothes. Experience Mendenhall’s book, Skin in the Game: The Stories My Tattoos Tell, read by the author. The author and audience experience her book together; as Mendenhall explains, she doesn’t remember writing it.
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