Indiana author Stepanich publishes autobiography

What began as an assignment to write 10 pages per week for a writers critique group resulted in Mary Ellen Stepanich’s first published autobiography.

Stepanich worked as a professor in behavior science for years before making the transition into the literary world. 

The book, “D is for Dysfunctional ... and Doo Wop,” is an autobiography containing vignettes from Stepanich’s life. She began writing it in 2011, and it took about a year to complete.

“We all want to leave something to our families, and what started out as just a family heirloom became something different,” Stepanich said. “It became kind of a lesson plan for life.”

Originally titled “Alone at Last,” Stepanich said the final title came as a last minute inspiration.

“I realized what I had been writing about are the dysfunctions of my own life and how they came to be,” Stepanich said. “Mid-life I grabbed myself and turned myself around and made something of my life.”

She currently resides in Arizona, but Stepanich was born in Fort Branch, Ind., and attended Indiana State University.

After traveling the world, she returned to Indiana to pursue her doctorate in behavioral science at Purdue University, where she was then offered a position on faculty before achieving tenure after two and a half years, according to a press release.

She self-published the book through Abbott Press, a branch of Writer’s Digest based in Bloomington.

As a new writer who might not have caught the eye of a publishing company, Stepanich said she felt self-publishing was a better option in order to ensure her story was told.

“The book has three different sorts of lessons,” Stepanich said. “The first is for parents raising children, and that is, if you want to instill values in them, do it carefully.”

As a result of the values she gathered from her surroundings when she was younger, Stepanich admitted she made some bad choices.

“The second part of the lessons is for women seeking relationships, how to do it to fail and how to do it to succeed,” she said. “Third, when you get old, passionately embrace life and the things that give you pleasure.”

Stepanich said she is always telling funny stories based on her life experiences. These stories found their way to the pages of her book through what she described as “laugh-out-loud moments.”

“With ‘D is for Dysfunctional,’ I even went so far as to include an epilogue, and I said that is the eulogy I want read at my funeral,” Stepanich said.

Apart from her writing, Stepanich volunteers at Sun Sounds of Arizona, an audio service for the blind or disabled who cannot read print.

She also sang in and directed the quartet Sweet Adelines, a group of women who sing, teach and perform barbershop harmony.

She is currently working on a novel about murder and romance, which will be loosely based on her experiences in the quartet and her trips to Hawaii.

“This is a courageous book,” an Amazon.com reviewer said of “D is for Dysfunctional.” “The writer opens her life to others with such honesty. From a traumatic event of being silenced by a teacher her first day of school she has found her voice.”

Follow reporter Rachel Wisinski on Twitter @RachelWisinski.