Author seeks help
Embarrassing moments happen to everyone, and Kellie Buckner wants individuals to be proud and share their stories.
For the past three years, Buckner, USU graduate, has been compiling embarrassing stories to include in a book she is currently writing and is asking for Utah State students’ help.
“Student stories are the most fresh,” Buckner said. “The best stories are from people closest to the age where peer pressure and fitting in matters. Their age makes them more likely to feel embarrassment than many adults do.”
Buckner said she has sights set to publish the book in the summer of 2008 with an editor from Deseret Book. However, to reach her deadline she needs humorous, embarrassing stories and she needs them quickly, she said. Anyone with embarrassing moments in life, such as experiences in junior high, boy-girl situations, high school situations, peer pressure and work environment incidents are needed.
The inspiration for the book, she said, was not something that popped into Buckner’s mind by chance. Instead, she said it came from the well-written pages of a baby magazine.
“I would read the funny stories concerning the moms and the pregnancy,” Buckner said. “They were everywhere, and they were my favorite part of the magazine. Sometimes the stories in magazines are just so-so, but the embarrassing stories are what really make the magazine.”
The wheels began turning in Buckner’s head, and she said she wondered how she could put together a large collection of embarrassing stories.
“At first I wanted to just put together a collection of humorous, embarrassing stories,” Buckner said. “But I then got thinking, what if the book did just a little more than that?”
Buckner’s book is not only an assortment of embarrassing stories, but she said it will also discuss embarrassment and how to get through it.
“A lot of times, people say their story is awful and that is the end of the story,” Buckner said. “But I want to know what you did after that. How did you deal with that embarrassing, horrible situation you were in?”
Buckner said she has spent a lot of time researching and learning about what embarrassment does to individuals physically, as well as what happens to the body emotionally.
“I’m also going to talk to a psychiatrist, because there is only so much you can learn from books,” Buckner said.
Buckner will be at the Book Table in Logan on Thursday, Jan. 17, from 6 to 9 p.m. in the recital hall, and she asks for students to come and bring their stories.
“There is no appointment necessary,” Buckner said. “Just please come in, sit down with me and share with me your stories.”
Names will be changed, unless asked otherwise. Stories of all lengths will be accepted.
-courtnie.packer@aggiemail.usu.edu