Authors for Literacy, Turning Pages SC, and numerous community partners in Lexington and Richland County of South Carolina come together annually to raise money for adult literacy. Join us as we highlight the incredible talent of authors supporting this event. To book your table space or sponsor the event, head over to Authors for Literacy.
Halina Schafer of Third Career Press is a retired, Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Master of Social Work from the State University of NY at Stony Brook. For more than twenty years, Halina was a therapist and Clinical Supervisor for staff therapists and interns as well as Supervisor and Director of various programs in NY state. That was her second career, a career shift due to her curiosity about human behavior, especially within the family context.
Her first career was a twenty-plus year path in Medical Pathology as a Histology Technician and Laboratory Supervisor. She began this path of study while still in high school, piqued by her curiosity of the human body – both why it failed and why it thrived.
And, if you haven’t guessed by now, “Third-Career Press, LLC” marks her third career that began with a self-published writing debut in 2017. Concepts from Halina’s two previous careers are infused into her writing bringing depth and realism into each book’s subject matter. It is Halina’s hope to continue to write for the next twenty years, at least.
To date, Halina has published three children’s books and is working on a fourth. These books cover the age-range of birth to age 15. Her stories come from family events, her own life experience, and her insights as a therapist when COVID closed the world.
She never intended to write for others. The first book started as a scrapbook birthday present for a niece’s daughter on her 1st birthday. This child was the first in their family of the next generation. When the family saw this, they were the ones who convinced her to publish.
The second book, Who Found Who, a story about a bird, almost wrote itself. That’s when Halina discovered the expression, “write what you know” was a solid truth for her. She answered all her own questions and wove them into a tale about what a parrot might have encountered while out in the wild.
Who Found Who was originally intended for ages 4 thru 8 as it is an easy reader chapter book. But, it has since found its way to people with literacy issues and into the hands of those who struggle with dementia. The neurology of dementia is different for everyone. Some may lose the ability to remember a face. Reading helps then relate and remember by letting them experience fun adventures such as in this story about a parrot. The more they stimulate the neuronal network in the brain the better off they are in the long run.
The 3rd book, You Can’t Make Me!, was one she felt compelled to write as COVID hit and forced us all to be stuck 24/7 in the same household with each other. It’s a book dealing with huge emotions. As a (retired) Clinical Social Worker for mental health and addictions, Halina immediately understood what a lockdown meant for a family. The book was written for tweens to help them learn ways to self-regulate their responses to events in their everyday lives. It’s a skill building book that includes journaling with detailed support to help the reader. It also has a parent and grandparent following. ”Where was this book when I was growing up,” and “Where was this book when I was raising my kids?” are comments Halina hears often.
Halina is currently working on the draft for a book on ecology along the SC coast, a STEM book aimed at middle schoolers.
Stay up to date on Halina’s tales over at Third Career Press.
