ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Angie, Galler Bowen earned her master’s degree in clinical social work at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. She has held licenses in Tennessee, Florida, and North Carolina.

Certified in cognitive behavioral therapy, rational hypnotherapy, and she has extensive training and expertise in helping people who struggle with depression, anxiety, forgiveness, obsessive, compulsive, and perfectionistic behaviors when trying to develop and maintain healthy relationships.

With 25 years of clinical private practice, 15 years facilitating social skills workshops and retreats, and a background of serving as an adjunct professor of Psychology, Social Work, and Social Welfare, she was also blessed to conduct continuing education workshops for her peers through the University of Tennessee, the National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and the National Association of social workers.

She enjoyed appearing on local television and radio to promote individual harmony during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. She has served as EAP counselor for Florida military, and the United States, Postal Service, as well as had the privilege to conduct grief groups for small children, and Tennessee public schools.

Angie lost her husband to cancer in 2018. He was her greatest supporter during the writing of her first novel Saints Codependent Good From Evil.  He also helped her do the initial research for her second novel Living Life on Life’s Terms (developing a timeshare corporation.)

It is Angie’s hope that while deeply entertaining as psychological thrillers, her novels will continue to direct a purposeful focus toward the readers’ abilities to overcome physical, psychological, social, and spiritual stumbling blocks to healthy relationships. This is her deepest desire as a woman and an author.

Now retired, Angie’s favorite pastime is walking the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, spending time with her grandchildren, her best friend, Georgia, her chocolate toy poodle, and deepening her relationship with her new partner Tom.  She is grateful for a second chance to love and be loved.

She is working on the third novel in the trilogy. It is entitled Covid Murders and Priestly Sins. It is her hope that one day the trilogy will become a lifetime movie or a Netflix series. She was approached by a playwright at a Reader’s Magnet Library of Congress book promotion in Tribeca New York recently. It is her hope that God will bring that to fruition.

Both her first and second novels are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most major booksellers. You can reach Angie at [email protected].

Out of all her joys, Angie’s greatest, by far, was giving the gift of life to her two children. Having raised her children alone, Angie can identify with readers who are struggling single parents. She knows the challenges they face and admires the courage and determination that each have drawn upon, even when they felt like giving up at times.

She will be the first to tell you that she struggled often, made lots of mistakes, but wouldn’t take a million for the privilege of being able to do “the best I could with what I had.”

The simplest things like feeding them, nurturing them, singing songs with them and to them, rocking them to sleep, reading them stories, cooking with them, snuggling with popcorn, introducing them to the basics, like crawling, walking, running, puzzles, numbers, words, big wheels, bicycles, shopping, cooking, camping out in tents (that was very scary at first), skating, climbing, monkey bars, sliding down, slides together, attempts at sports, catching crawdads (watching in horror as it was dissected on his dresser during homeschooling), hosting foreign exchange students, play dates, swim lessons, ballet, lessons, jazz lessons, tap lessons, karate lessons, chess, scouts, fishing, computers (they were just coming out; Texas Instruments), wrestling matches, monster truck shows, learning the importance of how to make friends, and be good friends, learning the importance of being a good neighbor, dragging them to the courthouse to witness a murder trial, taking them to sit in on a live session of Congress. So many memories we can make with our children. Choose your own. Make those memories.

Love is the key to any relationship. Be mindful of the fact that each person has their own love language. Yet, regardless of race, religion, socioeconomic, status, gay or straight, divorced, or single, we all want to be loved.

Angie considers it a blessing to have watched her children grow, to be there to wipe their tears, Band-Aid their injuries, teach them how to drive (that was scary; her son used to tell his friends “my sister is driving today so you had better grab your oh Jesus strap.”)

She remembers when her son broke his arm after getting into a car accident and walking down an exit ramp. It scared her to death as she took him to the hospital, and then made sure his car was towed to what he thought was a safe place.  It ended up getting broken into by someone her son thought was a good friend.  She grieved right along with him, more than once, when his belongings were stolen. She also grieved right along with her daughter as she endured her own trauma. It is what supportive involved parents do.

When children are little, it is important to pick them up when they fall, introduce them to new people and concepts, let them make mistakes and support them as they try to figure out solutions. She admits this was very difficult, especially adult issues as she often helped to the point of enabling.

She learned valuable lessons, trying to work, full-time, educate them, help them find good colleges, with very limited resources, provide fun activities, be the only disciplinarian, be both mother and a father (often met with resentment from her children and herself, which was unknowingly passed onto her children).

Angie acknowledges that while it was the most difficult challenge of her lifetime, it was the greatest joy.  And she celebrates what she did right, realizing that the rewards her children gained far outweighed the sacrifices she made.

She wasn’t wealthy like Cody’s parents. Would it have mattered if she had been? She doubts it. Money is great. It’s OK to want more of it.

But it doesn’t buy happiness. Angie’s motto then and now?  “We do the best we can with what we have. It’s all that’s humanly possible.”

And, as you have seen, as you’ve journeyed with Cody, Norma, Tom, George, Constance, Jerry, Kenny, Bruce, and David, we can’t stop horrible things from happening as the result of one decision, made in haste, or in a seemingly innocent effort to meet an unmet need.

Our choices matter. These novels remind us we are all imperfect human beings, striving to be happy. In this journey we call life.

“Happiness is, when why do you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Anonymous

And she did the best she could with what she had. She continues to do so. Her parents did that. So did their parents. So have her children. So will each of her readers. What did Angie learn?” it is all any of us can do if we truly want to except the awesome privilege and responsibility of living life on life’s terms.

She believes that our job is to offer support without over-enabling, sometimes a fine line, giving our children strong roots and wings. The hardest part are those wings. And praying daily that our children will find the courage to forgive those areas in which we just couldn’t measure up, rejoice with us in those areas, where we got it, right, and forge ahead in their own journeys, accepting the consequences, positive and negative, of making their own decisions, based on their own needs and their own desires to love and be loved,

Cody discovered that no amount of money will ever be enough to cover the pain and suffering that she endured and will continue to endure for a long time to come.
Grief is a great equalizer. So is joy! Stay tuned.  Angie’s characters have other chapters ahead of them. You do too. Always be open.

Thank you for reading my books.

Angie Galler Bowen.