My Writing

Surrounded by trash while growing up with an abusive hoarder, Maurene Janiece can’t get away from her childhood home fast enough, a place that was never the family gathering place she’d wished for as a child. But twelve years later, that’s exactly where she finds herself. Unable to burn it down, she buys the house from her parents, determined to take revenge on 24 years’ worth of her father’s hoarded junk that always came first.

Now, she wonders if she can create a safe and secure home for her own children. Told with a spark of rebellious energy and introspection, Trashed follows Maurene’s journey as she tries to get rid of her childhood ghosts but almost loses everything in her present—her marriage, her sobriety, and her stability—in this memoir of coming to terms with one’s past while clearing the way for the future.