Out with It: How Stuttering Helped Me Find My Voice

A compassionate, unflinching memoir (David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas) by a young woman who fought for years to change who she was until she finally found her voice and learned to embrace her imperfection. Imagine waking up one day to find your words trapped inside your head, leaving you unable to say what you feel, think, want, or need... That's exactly what happened to Katherine Preston at the age of seven. Thus began a seventeen-year battle with her stutter, hiding her shame and denying anything was wrong. Finally, exhausted and humiliated, she left her home in London to travel around America meeting hundreds of stutterers- including celebrities, psychologists, writers, and others from all walks of life- as well as speech therapists and researchers. What began as a vague search for a cure became a journey that debunked the misconceptions shrouding the condition, and a love story that transformed her definition of normal. Out With It is an anthology of expertise and experience that sheds light on an ancient problem that today affects 60 million people worldwide. It is a heartwarming memoir and a journalistic feat, a story about understanding yourself an learning to embrace the voice within.