For many visitors of the upcoming Los Angeles Times Festival of Books 2024, the event is an opportunity to get exciting reads about fantastical far-off places or escaping to meet a wide array of interesting fictional characters.

However, for authors like Dawn Smith-Theodore, it is an opportunity to come forward with tough questions, make themselves vulnerable, and all for the sake of helping at least one reader who is facing the same challenges that they had encountered.

Smith once worked for 25 years as a professional dancer with her own studio in Los Angeles. Along the way, she found a new calling in providing psychotherapy and becoming an expert in eating disorders. She has contributed her knowledge to publications such as Dance Magazine, Pointe, and Dance Teacher. Her prominence in the field had even landed her an interview with People Magazine as a subject-matter expert on eating disorders within the entertainment industry.

However, the deeper, underlying reasons for where her drive comes from are shared in the book she plans to exhibit at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books 2024. It is her memoir titled, Mother, Men and Me: A Memoir of Anxiety, Anorexia and Affairs.

In it, Smith reveals how her passion for dancing and the sharing of that passion with her mother is what saw her through numerous trials. These included not only her own struggles with anorexia but also the mental health challenges of discovering uncomfortable family secrets and the fear of repeating the same mistake of ones own parents. Along with that, Mother, Men and Me also tackles her personal history with body-image struggles and the trauma of scandal.

Those curious about her journey can find Mother, Men and Me: A Memoir of Anxiety, Anorexia and Affairs when it goes on display at the self-publishing and book marketing company ReadersMagnets exhibit at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at booth #225. The literary festival will once again be at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, this coming April 18-20, 2024. Dawn Smith-Theodores book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To learn more about the authors psychotherapy services or other publications, visit her website at https://www.dawntheodore.com/.

Mother, Men and Me: A Memoir of Anxiety, Anorexia and Affairs
Author: Dawn Smith-Theodore
Published date: December 1, 2023
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Genre: Memoir

Author Bio
Dawn Smith-Theodore is a respected psychotherapist and eating disorder expert with over twenty years of experience as well as being recovered from anorexia herself. She was a professional dancer, a former flight attendant, and owned a dance studio in Los Angeles for twenty-five years. An esteemed author and host of the show TuTu Thin: A Podcast for Dancers, Dawn provides insights from a dance professionals perspective, helping dancers and parents around the world navigate healthy living.