One of my favorite gifts from childhood was a create-your-own story kit. It was a perfectly packaged set of pages with designated spaces to pen the world's next bestseller and illustrate pictures to go along with it. Then all you had to do was ship it to company headquarters, and—viola! Within 5 to 7 business days (okay, it was the early 2000s, so maybe longer), your book would be "published" and returned to you with a hard cover, glossy numbered pages, and, best of all, your

---The below excerpt is a chapter from my debut memoir, Temple and Ash--- It is nearing bedtime, and my younger sister Casey exhales dramatically as we sit side-by-side in the bathtub, scrubbing the shower walls with our soapy rags. Together, we bemoan the devious Evil Step-Mother for forcing us into such cruel indentured servitude and preventing us from being outside instead, singing and dancing with the birds. I lean over to inspect her work, informing her that she has mis