A living second chance.
What happens when losing everything becomes the path to finding what you were meant to discover all along?
About Margaret Fleming
At eighty-eight, Margaret Fleming's narrative memoir Rise, A Book of Second Chances, is her first publication. But age has never stopped this indefatigable woman who is still a practicing psychotherapist and adopted the youngest of her ten children, a six-day-old infant, as a single mother in her late sixties. Rise describes her disastrous and failed childhood, her attempts to "be normal" as a suburban housewife and mother, her descent into alcoholism and an almost fatal suicide attempt. Given a miraculous second chance, she went on to earn an advanced degree in social work, establish a successful psychotherapy practice and found an adoption agency dedicated to the placement of hard-to-place children including those afflicted with HIV, cerebral palsy and a number of other physical and mental challenges.
Fleming is the recipient of numerous awards including a Hero Award from the American Red Cross; the Purpose Prize, Encore Careers; 100 Most Influential Women in Chicago, Crain's Chicago Business Magazine; Distinguished Family Service Award, Illinois Association of Marriage and Family Counselors and Oak Park Villager of the Year, Wednesday Journal. She is featured in Who's Who as the recipient of an Albert and Nelson Achievement Lifetime Achievement Award. Fleming has presented papers to a variety of organizations including The American Association of Adoption Attorneys and the Joint Council on International Children's Services. She and her family have been featured in The Chicago Tribune, Newsweek and People magazine and The Christian Science Monitor. Fleming lives in a Chicago suburb, with her children, three dogs and three cats.
What People Are Saying About Rise
"My sister Margaret is a brave woman who writes courageously of her suicide attempts, her failed marriage, her struggles with the horrid memories of incest and the solitude she sometimes feels within her own large acquired family. Her honesty in dealing with all this, together with her kindness and optimism, are aspects of her achievements described in her inspiring memoir, Rise."
— Edmund White, PEN/Faulkner Award winner & author of A Boy's Own Story
Press
Adoption Link, the agency Margaret founded, placed Zach Anglin with his loving parents, Harold and Patty. Watch this inspiring story and see the heights he’s risen to!
Margaret discusses her brother Edmund White in an upcoming documentary about the celebrated author's life.