How awesome that you came!!!

Welcome to my beautiful planet.  Guess what?

It is NOT normal here.

I am Paula Howley:

female human being, home schooling mom, author, kids’ public speaking teacher, comedian in training, ex-stripper, seeker, philosopher, activist and provocateur.   A student of life, I love meeting other students to see what kind of shit we can kick up together.

Empowering the ‘powerless’, humanizing the humans, and en-couraging the fearful is my raison d’etre.  I have been powerless, human and scared so I am an expert in my field.

My first book, which I hope will do all of these things, “How To Get Out Of The Business: 8 Sex Workers Reveal Life Changing Strategies” is being edited RIGHT NOW and I can’t WAIT to share it with you!   totally re-written RIGHT NOW.

I interviewed 8 ex-strippers and/or prostitutes who have left ‘the business’ and are now thriving in civilian life.  By thriving I mean that they define their lives as having meaning, and they are healthy and happy.   They are good with who they are.

It takes serious moxie to move from sex work to the real world and it takes strategy too.  Believe me, it’s not easy to explain away a 10 year gap on a resume.  But the women I’ve talked to are intelligent, interesting, bold and vulnerable.  Some of them are hilarious.  Some of them are weird.  One of them is me.

But in some way they each inspire me.  And I feel truly honoured that they have trusted me with their deeply personal stories.

Near the end of writing this book however, something happened.  I realized that I did not have any stories of women of colour.  Not cool.  How could I have been so white about that?  So I am seeking out more stories to round this larger story out and make sure ALL the voices are being heard.

In the meantime, I discovered that it was nearing time for me to tell my deeply personal story.  So, I’ve been writing my memoir. This is the one I’ve been wanting to write for fifteen or so years.  I hired a coach to help me begin in 2016 but it is still being written.  I am delving into the catholic shit right now- the least fun of all, but it must be done.  And when I’m done writing this book, seriously, I really can die happy.

In the meantime, let’s talk.  Let’s talk about deep stuff and silly stuff.  Let’s talk about deep silly stuff, and be internet friends.

Thanks for the visit.  Stay in touch because we are gonna do some really cool shit.