Scribd Editor's Pick: <i>Eat Pray Drive</i> by Helen Winslow Black

When I was a kid, I dreaded family road trips. There were way too many of us to squeeze into one gray Buick LeSabre. And unlike my own kids, who have gadgets and apps galore to stave off boredom, my main source of entertainment was my sister, who was prone to imitating weird machine sounds and singing aloud to "Islands in the Stream." Even at Denny's, the tourist sanctuary of the world, our family stuck out like a sore thumb in matching sun visors, which we never wore any other time of year except on those seven consecutive days.

I could go on. But the point I really wanted to make is this: Read Helen Winslow Black's Eat Pray Drive. It's this indie writer's [journal? memoir? newsletter?] that will get you reminiscing -- for good or bad -- about your own childhood road trips, but more importantly, sympathizing with your mother. (I meant to write about this over the summer, but I'm a few months behind on Scribd Editor's Picks!)

I'm surprised Black hasn't been picked up by a major publisher already, not just because she's an incredibly talented writer, which she is, but because her stories are so universally appealing and... well... human. But check it out for yourself; read an excerpt of her first indie book, Seven Blackbirds, which could certainly hold its own against any book on retailers' shelves today. Or any of her many, many great essays on Scribd.

And if you're still not convinced that Helen is a writer to watch, you'll be interested to know that she has a following of 65,000 readers on Scribd, the most of any independent author. I'm sure her mother would be proud.