In My Real Mother, storyteller Tina N. Katamay explores the casualties of war, mental illness, and substance abuse, their effect on her family, and how abandonment, disappointments, failures, and the human condition nearly destroyed them all.

In this creative nonfiction, Tina weaves together true and fabricated stories, told to her by her "real" mother: the woman who gave birth to two children only to abandon them in pursuit of her own dreams.

Tina longed to understand who her real mother was and what her upbringing might have been like. What were her deepest desires, biggest secrets, failures, and triumphs? What had happened to the woman Tina loved so completely that she could not abandon her to accept the love of the "other" mother, the one who raised her and her sister?

In this first volume of a three-book series, Tina wants you to meet her "real" mother, Linda Holloway, and to share with you the experiences that led to her leaving. She wants you to hear Linda's sadly tragic but remarkably heroic stories, as told during her life and channeled to Tina after her death.

My Real Mother is a beautiful story of REAL LIFE without happy endings.

(Tina is currently writing the two sequels to My Real Mother. In My Other Mother, Tina focuses on love and loyalty. In The Good Girl, she contemplates forgiveness. My Other Mother and The Good Girl are expected to be released in 2025).