My name is Davis Aujourd'hui and I am the author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude". I have always loved to write, but I didn't get beyond freshman English in college. I resented the criticism of the teaching assistant who had said that my writing was too complex. Perhaps I should have listened to him. I only punished myself by not taking other writing courses.
I had two very short-lived careers in the business field. My first career was in academic publishing where I served as a field representative. I then pursued another dream career in real estate. Unfortunately, that was short-lived due to a then unfavorable economy. Eventually, I became a social worker with New York State Adult Protective Services. A seemingly unfortunate health situation resulted in a blessing. I became able to retire at a very young age.
I've had several challenges along the way. Paramount, were my problems with addiction and mental illness. My journey into recovery had begun over twenty years ago. While I then knew that I had a problem with sexual addiction, I first had to deal with another problem of which I had been in denial. I had been drinking alcoholically for many years. I can now see where I was medicating something else. A few years later, I was diagnosed with manic-depression. After years of suicidal depressions, I had my first mania after my last drinking binge.
Isn't it ironic that I endured some of the same problems that my clients had! In a sense, they taught me what healing I needed for myself. It's just that I needed help. That came from God who provided me with 12-step programs, therapy, and a good psychiatrist.
Despite my history of depression, I had usually possessed an incredible sense of humor. I sure needed that in order to get by in my life as we all do. I especially needed that during the twenty years that I was a social worker. That's when I developed the character of Sister Mary Olga.
I soon began to develop the other zany characters until I had created an entire cast. I would call up my friend and I would leave her voice-mails during which I would create spontaneous outlandish and hilarious scenarios. She loved it and that gave me a lot of joy!
At the point when I had finished my memoirs, I thought to myself, I bet I could write a book about these crazy characters! So I sat down and I wrote a book in a little over a month. The thing was, I still had more ideas! I did the only logical thing. I wrote another book. Guess what? I hadn't run out of ideas yet! Over the course of the next four I wrote eleven novels in the series and I still haven't run out of ideas!
Around the time that I was getting ready to have the first book published, I asked my mother-in-law if she would pose in a nun's habit as Sister Mary Olga on the cover of my book. You see, to me, she embodied my mental concept of what Sister Mary Olga should look like. She said, “Sure, Davis! I'll do it for you!”
Unfortunately, she passed away before that could happen. As she lay on her deathbed, I said to her, “Jan, I'm going to get you on that cover one way or another!” Thanks to the marvelous illustrator for my cover, that person was able to create a nun's habit over her picture. Once that was done, I dedicated my first book to her.
Only in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would become an author! Yet suddenly I began to write as if it was my full-time job. If you wonder what I'm doing now, I'll tell you. I'm polishing the other books in the series so that they will be fine and outrageously funny gems like the jewel of this first two books I've created: Misadventures and Babes in Bucksnort. You can soon look forward to reading the next book in the series, "Have A Heart".
Author Davis Aujourd'hui
