It's Time to Share My Book
"Thinking About Speaking: The Adastra Approach to Mastering the American English Accent"
Timing
Now that the time has come to release the first part of what I started writing back in March 2022, it’s not just relief and excitement that I feel, there’s a lot of apprehension as well. It’s been in my head, out of my head and onto docs on a computer screen, and now I can hold a paperback copy in my hands. Letting other eyes finally see it is kind of scary. I read a good post on LinkedIn a while back about thinking of putting something you create out in the world as sharing it to help other people. What good does it do anyone else if I keep it all in my head? So here I go. I’m nervous and exhausted but hope this will be a good step to get past.
I can’t believe my last newsletter was in February and I had a proof copy to hold in my hands and proofread. I thought it would be easy-peasy and a quick step towards sharing it. Nope. Lots of details for the paperback but even more for the ebook form, a change of websites, and finally available for international distribution, and here I am three months later.
It’s on my website in book form and ebook form, but available everywhere else just in ebook form for a while.
The What, Who, and Why
May 2025 marked 10 years since I left teaching at a university to do exactly what I wanted and work with exactly the people who wanted to learn what I wanted to teach. Since then, I’ve learned an incredible amount about how to best adapt what works in an academic setting to one-to-one instruction/coaching.
This book is about the WHAT - What is an accent and what’s the best way to make changes?
The WHO - Who chooses to pursue improving their accented speech?
The WHY - The answers to the questions students and teachers have asked me about why we’re doing things in a certain way and about the rationale behind it.
The How
What’s next is the big part of the iceberg that this book is just the visible tip of - the how to do it. I wrote and wrote and wrote detailed answers and examples to every single question students have asked me about why American English sounds the way it does. I basically wrote a phonetics book specifically for speakers of English as a second language and teachers.
I believe it would be best to have audio with those examples so I’m working on adding audio to the text and put it in an easy format to view, listen, and download. I won’t wait until it’s all done before I share it. I’ll share it as soon as I have pieces available.
The Contents
A lot of my life events and cycles of change happen in 5’s. I regret that I didn’t make this book 10 chapters, released in my 10th year of business, but I’ll secretly think of the “Resources” as chapter 10. Here’s what’s inside the book:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Why do People Choose Accent Modification?
Chapter 2: What is Speech?
Chapter 3: The Difference Between Accents, Dialects, and Accent Modification
Chapter 4: Speech is Identity
Chapter 5: The Role of Memory in Speech
Chapter 6: The Evolution of Speech (Awareness, Control, Analysis)
Chapter 7: Tracking Progress
Chapter 8: Facilitating the Mental Processing of Language
Chapter 9: The Speech Habit
A Final Word
Resources: 1) Examples, 2) Using the EARR Method
References
Let it Go
Yes, I wasted even more time in writing this newsletter by making an AI graphic that shows the book going out into the world. Some of you have heard about me talk about this book from the early writing days and celebrated milestones along the way. Thank you for all your encouragement and support! This is a happy day to share with you! Use the code NEWS50 to get 50% off.
