Twelve Sweetpotatoes: Escaping from a Carolina Soap Opera

Twelve Sweetpotatoes is an Americana reflection of the author's 1960s life on her mother's hardscrabble tobacco farm in Eastern North Carolina. The reader joins the author as she tells stories along her intimate path to healing from life-shaping family alcoholism, mental illness, loss, and suffering. It is a dark story, yet an inspirational book for anyone wishing to change their life from the drama and chaos of dysfunction to a life of peace and, perhaps, joy.

In her mid-40s, Joan Barnes Copeland began writing stories of her chaotic childhood and family life in the cities of Portsmouth and Norfolk, Virginia, and about her subsequent family life on a North Carolina hardscrabble tobacco farm in the 1960s. Upon her retirement from a career in the Information Technology Management field and over nearly ten years, she continued writing stories to capture the reality of her escape from what she now calls “Carolina Soap Opera.”

Most of these stories had never seen the light of day until the publication of her memoir, Twelve Sweetpotatoes: Escaping from a Carolina Soap Opera.

“Perhaps one day, I will find the words, the energy to write about the experiences that have brought me to this peaceful place in such a way that I can help and soothe others, if only for a short while. That would be the ultimate gift to me and the ultimate gift that I could give to the Universe. If that is what You want, God, please give me the skill, the talent, the initiative, the creativity, and the opportunity to fulfill this life mission. I so want to give something back--something that truly matters.”

Joan lives with her husband Mel and their two dogs and one cat in Wilmington, North Carolina.