Loch Raven Mom Self-Publishes Book

The plot of the book Buffalo Gals is one that its author has lived: A girl graduates from college only to learn that finding work and becoming an adult isn't as easy as it seems.

"I like to think of [the story] as an every woman's journey. It’s a novel about a young woman who graduates from college and all the uncertainties she faces—it takes place in that first year after college," said Amy Strychasz.

Strychasz, 38, who now lives in Loch Raven Heights, grew up in Buffalo, NY, and graduated summa cum laude from Canisius College with a bachelor's degree in English.

"I found that my 20's were stuck in adolesence—I didn't know what I wanted to do in life," Strychasz said. "The expectation is that you graduate and you get a job, or a job in your field, or a paying job—that's often not met."

Strychasz said she likes to think of the book as a three-stage story. She began writing it in 1997 when, at 24 years of age, she moved to Baltimore to get a master's degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore.

Years later, she started working on her story again.

"It was literally six years ago, I found the first 10 pages tucked away in my old writing stuff—I thought 'That's not a bad start, let's see if I can piggyback off that,' " Strychasz said. "But I was married and then I had a kid—so everything got pushed aside."

Buffalo Gals was finished between November, 2009 and May, 2010.

"We began looking for literary agents, but it's a pretty average story, the characters are genuine and earnest—no one wanted to take a chance on that," Strychasz said. 

So she and her husband, Ryan Heilman, decided to self-publish and self-promote.

"You see a lot of self-published books out there—if this was just for vanity though, I would have let it sit," Strychasz said. "It would be great to make money, for me it’s more the satisfaction of having a story out there that’s just a little bit closer to home. I think it’s a story that resonates with a lot of women coming out of college and just resonates in general."

You can find Strychasz's book locally at , in Hunt Valley and Red Canoe Bookstore Cafe in Lauraville, where Strychasz is set to autograph copies on Nov. 19.

The book is also available nationally on special order at most stores and online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which both offer the book in e-reader format.