Contemporary Authors

• All About You: An Adopted Child's Memoir - September 11, 2017 Word Hermit Press LLC, Charleston, SC

• Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B076PKS5ZZ?redirectedFromKindleDbs=true

  Liz Butler Duren lives in Charleston SC. She is an actress, an award-winning photographer and a local tour guide when she is not disrupting her private family by writing tell all memoirs about them. In her defense, her story is not unique to adoptees but can resonate with ALL families. She can only hope that spreading the word with her story can open hearts to all the love that everyone can share in their family. Let love shine the way and let the pain of the past go.

• Bookish Blonde - https://the-bookish-blonde.com/2018/04/23/whats-write-about-liz/

  April 23, 2018whatswriteincharleston1 Comment
  on What’s WRITE about Liz!

  What’s WRITE about Liz!

  Liz Butler Duren
  I almost never have trouble getting started when I choose to feature one of Charleston’s “writable women.” Usually I see one little concept, like a particular bright color teeming out, and start describing how that special brand of yellow or pink or green decorates the world everywhere they go. But with Liz Duren I felt like I was trying to catch the entire rainbow as it hurled all its incredible stripes at me. Then I realized, something with so many shades could not be balled up and put into one monochromatic ink for the typical pen. That would just dull all of the layers and come out brown, like dying leaves. It would never do the rainbow justice. There’s just too much present…so many hues. That is Liz Duren. She’s a photographer, a tour guide, an actress, an author, a mother, and a rebellious Charleston legacy. She shines like the pastels on the famed Rainbow Row. She presides over the cobblestone streets, cracks showing proudly–her beauty cancelling them out anyway–a true Charleston staple.
  When I asked Liz what she loved the most about being from Charleston, my answer danced in front of me in plain sight. She said, “there are certain cities that evoke a response when they are mentioned and Charleston is one of them… Everyone either wants to go there or wants to go back there. The lucky US that get to live here are surrounded by a city of stories; a luscious past of glory and destruction, of honor and grace.”
  The very same is true about Liz. She evokes a response. She is a luscious past of glory and destruction, of honor and grace. She is a woman who stays true to who she is despite whatever may try to tear that truth down. I think the legacy of Charleston is perhaps more woven into her than she even knows. She too is a symbol of destruction and rebirth, of sweet magnolias, and foggy wharfs. She too has risen from ashes.
  After I read Liz Duren’s book, All About You: An Adopted Child’s Memoir, I needed to know more about her. I had to meet this woman who so uniquely showed equal amounts of pride and pain about her past, and was so honest in the way we rarely ever see. Her writing introduced me to a woman who revered her family, descended from the Legare line, one of the first in South Carolina. I read of a woman with a certain pride in her heritage, but also a resentment and rebuke of the long-running lie she was told about her adoption. I met a woman who struggled and self-destructed, who faced rejection and retribution on her way to finding out the truth about who she was. I met someone who had failures and embarrassments that she wore on her sleeve (in such the un-southern way), but kept fighting. Probably perceived as rebellious, fickle, and flighty by some, I simply saw a gypsy soul who believed in life and love. Her surroundings tried to suffocate it out of her at times, just like LowCountry humidity in late July…but it failed. She couldn’t be suppressed. She kept going, feeling for walls in the dark, misstepping along the way, but eventually finding the light a little battered and bruised..the blues and reds of injury only coloring her more brightly than ever.
  I had to see what a tour of my city was like from this person… someone with such a story and heritage tethered to the old buried pieces of the city walls…and with such an art in her soul. So my husband and I met her in Washington Square, her piercing blue eyes giving her away immediately. And I met the same woman who penned that novel that drew me in so much.
  The boasting voice of an actress sprang from her lungs and gave away her enthusiasm for the city that she herself is so laced into. She began showing us unique buildings, alleyways, and treasures not seen on every typical tour; all the while letting us in on all the juiciness, both bitter and sweet, that created the Charleston we know today. She picked out perfect photo ops along the way, making us feel like the main event while we listened to history from the lips of a story-teller. It was magical as we stepped back into another time all together where we could almost smell the gunpowder, hear the cannons ,and taste the Carolina gold.

  One of my favorites from our photo shoot with Liz! She’s so talented!
  However, the tour wasn’t only about Charleston itself. Liz was still there, those colors dancing under the warm springtime sun. She celebrated the strength of the city that survived wars, poverty, and pride. She convicted the same town for its role in slavery, secession, and unsavory politics. She showed the good things, the bad things, the raw things…just like she does for herself. She showed the truth, handing out affections and discipline in equal breaths, like a mother does its child. There was a sense of ownership and connection to every part of it. The tour was wonderfully different, just like its guide.
  I encourage all of you in the Charleston area, or those who hope to visit, to meet this woman one way or another. Pick up her book, take her tour, or catch her at one of the local theatres. She’s as much an attraction as the pineapple fountain itself, and as equally synonymous with Charleston. You’ll leave her presence with all the feels, a hunger for bold truth, and I guarantee, a lot of amazing pictures to preserve all the color she’s bound to spill all over you.
  by Lorna Hollifield
  For more on Liz, visit these sites!
  http://tours-charleston.com/

Print Marked Items
Duren , Liz Butler: ALL ABOUT YOU
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Duren , Liz Butler ALL ABOUT YOU Word Hermit Press LLC (Indie Nonfiction) $14.99 9, 12 ISBN: 978-0-9982794-2-8
After discovering that she was adopted, debut author Duren set out to find her birth mother and uncover her biological roots.
From a very young age, the author suspected that she might not be biologically related to her immediate family members. She looked different
from them, for one thing, and often found herself emotionally isolated from her mother and brother. She occasionally asked her parents if she was
adopted and they always waved off the question--until one day, her father simply admitted that she was. She was 15 at the time, and from that day
forward, she was committed to finding her biological mother. She chronicles her long journey in a story involving decades-old records, helpful
friends, unsupportive family members, old yearbooks, two private detectives, multiple phone calls with people who knew more than they
admitted, and years of patient waiting. Along the way, Duren reveals bits and pieces of her own personal life, which included three marriages,
four children, a brief time living in Germany, a successful career as a photographer, and a lifelong love of theater. In her quest, she encountered
encouragement and discouragement from various parties, ultimately building her own support system, comprised of friends who loved her and
were equally invested in her search. Duren writes somberly about serious events in her life (her adoptive parents' aging, the slow pain of waiting
for news, chasing dead ends), but her quirky sense of humor emerges throughout her memoir as she muses on her own insecurities and fantasies.
She jokes about imaginary best-case and worst-case scenarios, writes silly captions for photographs (such as one that compares her haircut and
her son's), and recounts her childhood memories with fondness and amusement. In writing this delightful memoir, Duren ultimately explores the
difference between the family we're given and the family we choose. Readers will be left feeling satisfied by the hopeful ending to her search.
A charming, relatable memoir on adoption, love, and identity.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Duren , Liz Butler: ALL ABOUT YOU." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461359/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=25ae69a6. Accessed 15 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525461359

• Reader's Favorite
  https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/all-about-you
  Word count: 399

  Author Biography

  Although I found out I was adopted when I was 15, deep in my heart I always knew that I was. I didn't feel unloved, I just felt different. Once I knew the truth I had to have answers, I knew these answers would explain WHO I was and WHY I felt the way I did. The journey was not an easy one, records are sealed, secrets are protected... but giving up was never an option for me.

  Book Review
  Reviewed by Rabia Tanveer for Readers' Favorite
  All About You: An Adopted Child's Memoir by Liz Butler Duren is the story of a woman who is trying to find her birth mother and, during that journey, she finds herself. Our story follows Liz; she lived a relatively happy and healthy life, until one day she finds out that everything she knew was not true. She found out that she was adopted and she was just a teenager. But that was when her real story began because this was the time in her life she started looking for her mother; the real mother who gave birth to her had given her away.

  Even though she was determined, it was not easy to find a woman who did not want to be found. This was just the beginning of her 29-year-long journey in which she will try her best to find her birth mother, try to decipher her identity through old agency documents which further complicate her journey. She has to decode the information and find the truth that reveals the past and the real truth about her family. Can she really do it? Will she ever find her birth mother? What can she do when her birth mother doesn’t want to be found?

  Liz Butler Duren handled this story wonderfully as a third party. She gave hard truths and the real story without getting too personal, yet at the same time she succeeded in showing the real emotions behind her words and translating them for readers. This story has a lot of heart and feeling, but it also has humor and a dry wit that set a very natural pace for the book. This is a really enjoyable read, simple yet brilliant, and one that readers will not forget any time soon.

  Reviewed on 07/18/2017