Fierce, Funny, and Female

A Nationally Award-winning Memoir:
WINNER, 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in Humor
WINNER, 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in Women’s Studies
WINNER, 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards in Women’s Health
WINNER, 2017 Beverly Hills Book Awards in Women’s Issues
WINNER, 2018 Independent Press Award in Humor
WINNER, 2018 Independent Press Award in Women’s Studies
FINALIST, 2018 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Memoir (Overcoming Adversity)
FINALIST, 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards in Humor

This book is the celebrated prequel to the critically acclaimed, nationally award-winning and bestselling memoir, Never Give in to Fear. In her raw, vivid, and unabashed style, author Marti MacGibbon delivers a sometimes heartbreaking, often hilarious, always engaging account of her passage through trauma, betrayal, and loss in adolescence and young adulthood to discover her inner badass self. As one of the first women to work as a laborer in the Texas oil field, she set off explosives and staked oil wells before realizing her childhood dream of becoming a successful standup comic. Marti introduces readers to a wide range of characters in her life: from sleazy authority figures, wannabe Sixties musicians and crazed Corn Belt cult leaders, to Texas oil billionaires and wildcatters, to wild-eyed redneck coworkers who robbed banks on their lunch hour—in the company truck. The book includes scenes with iconic comedians, Hollywood entertainment industry moguls, and a legendary bluesman, and offers insights into resiliency, courage, and self-empowerment.

Marti MacGibbon, CADC-II, ACRPS, CAPMS, is a humorous inspirational speaker, a nationally award-winning author, certified addiction specialist, standup comic, and award-winning recovery advocate. Few speakers have a personal comeback story as powerful and inspirational as Marti’s. A popular keynote speaker who inspires, entertains, and empowers listeners, she’s been interviewed in Glamour, Investor’s Business Daily and Entrepreneur, on ABC-TV, CBS-TV, FOX-TV and numerous radio stations.

As a national advocate for human trafficking victims and survivors, Ms. MacGibbon has shared her expertise at the White House and the State Department. She is recipient of the IAIC Lifetime Recovery Advocate Award, for outstanding accomplishments in support of recovery and reducing the stigma surrounding addiction, mental illness, homelessness and human trafficking.

She has performed at the world-famous Comedy Store and Improv in Hollywood, and has traveled the U.S. as a professional standup comic. Marti is founder, producer, and emcee of Laff-Aholics Standup Comedy Benefit for Recovery, an annual charity fundraiser in Indianapolis that features nationally headlining comedians. One hundred percent of the profits from the show go to transitional housing facilities that provide access to addiction treatment and mental health services for the recovery community’s most vulnerable.

Marti married her true love, Chris Fitzhugh, and lives with him in California.