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Lessons From The Edge by Marie Yovanovitch PDF DownloadLessons From The Edge by Marie Yovanovitch KINDLELessons From The Edge by Marie Yovanovitch EBOOKLessons From The Edge by Marie Yovanovitch EPUBLessons From The Edge by Marie Yovanovitch Read onlineLessons From The Edge by Marie Yovanovitch Full PDFBook Description: An inspiring and urgent memoir by the former U.S. ambassador toUkraine—a pioneering diplomat who spent her career advancing democracy in the post-Sovietworld, and who electrified the nation by speaking truth to power during the first impeachmentof President Trump.Marie Yovanovitch was at the height of her diplomatic career when it all came crashing down. In themiddle of her third ambassadorship—a rarity in the world of diplomacy—she was targeted by a smearcampaign and abruptly recalled from her post in Kyiv, Ukraine. In the months that followed, sheendured personal tragedy while simultaneously being pulled into the blinding lights of the firstimpeachment inquiry of Donald Trump. It was a time of chaos and pain, for her and for the nation.Yet Yovanovitch was no stranger to instability and injustice. Born into a family that had survivedSoviet and Nazi terror, she first saw the corrosive effect of corruption in Somalia while cutting herteeth as a diplomat in the male-dominated world of the 1980s State Department. She was aneyewitness to the 1993 constitutional crisis in Russia and the street fighting in Moscow. And she roseto the top of her profession in the crucible of the former USSR, where she saw how PresidentVladimir Putin adeptly exploited corrupt leaders in neighboring countries and undermined theirdeveloping democracies.Nowhere was Putin’s aggression clearer than in Ukraine, where Russia meddled in elections,launched cyberattacks, peddled misinformation, illegally annexed Crimea, invaded the Donbas, andattacked Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea. But when Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from her postand Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, found himself set upon byTrump, it became clear just how dangerously close to the edge America itself had strayed.Through it all, Yovanovitch tirelessly advocated for the Ukrainian people, while advancing U.S.interests and staying true to herself. When she made the courageous decision to participate in theimpeachment inquiry—over the objections of the Trump administration—she earned the nation’srespect, and her dignified response to the president’s attacks won our hearts. She has reclaimed herown narrative, first with her lauded congressional testimony, and now with this powerful memoir: thedramatic saga of one woman’s role at the vanguard of American foreign policy during a time ofupheaval, for herself and for our country.=====================================================================As a young writer, my naiveté about the publishing process nearly led me to financial ruin.Here’s how to avoid my mistakes.The first thing I tell debut authors is this: Assume nothing.If just one person had sat me down when I signed my first book contract and explained howpublishing works, how nothing is guaranteed, and how it often feels like playing RussianRoulette with words, I would have made much sounder financial and creative decisions. Iwould have set a foundation for a healthy life as an artist, laying the groundwork to thrive in
uncertainty, to avoid desperation, panic, and bad decisions that would affect me for years tocome.How would my life be different if a fellow writer or someone in the industry had told me thatthe money I’d be receiving for my advances was absolutely no indication of what I couldmake on future book deals? What pain could I have avoided if they had advised me not tospend that money as though there would be more where that came from? I suspect I mayhave avoided a near nervous breakdown and not come so perilously close to financial ruinand creative burnout. But no one came forward.Let me back up. One of the most respected publishing houses in the world gave me$100,000 to write two books, one of which was already finished, and I was feeling… well,fancy.As a kid who’d once stood in line with her mother to get food stamps, I could not believe thefigures in my bank account.Now, I want to acknowledge the inherent privilege that I hold as a white, educated,middleclass American. The problems I write about here are “struggles” many people wouldlove to have. They are good problems. Lucky, even. Growing up with a lack of financialliteracy didn’t mean there weren’t opportunities for me out there because of my positioningin the world. I had a leg up, even when it felt like I was in the trenches. Access equalsprivilege, and I understand that. I try hard to acknowledge my privilege and not be part ofthe problem, but didn’t do so explicitly in the original version of this article. Revising is myfavorite part of the writing process, and clearly a big part of my personal life. In fact I wish Icould go back and revise the past six years.I did play it smart, though: I didn’t quit my day job, and wrote a larger-than-usual check tomy student loan company when the advance came through. I didn’t know if this was aonetime thing or not.Each new book is like a weekend in Vegas: Maybe I’ll get lucky, maybe I won’t.But when I sold a trilogy to another publisher the following year for over $250,000 dollars(even now I cannot believe I wrote that sentence and, furthermore, that it’s true), I reallythought I had made it — forever, not just for a moment. Not for this one book deal. Forever.Otherwise, I reasoned, they would never have paid me such enormous sums. Thesepublishers must be investing in me for the long run. I was one of their own.It had happened twice in a row, these six-figures: Surely I had somehow become one of thechosen few. After years of research and struggle to break out in such a ferociouslycompetitive industry, I’d somehow come out ahead.But in that process, I’d somehow missed several critical aspects of the business, and thatwas on me (to some extent). Surely there were writers who had gotten the memo abouthow advances worked, and the ins and outs of publishing. But so much of an aspiringwriter’s life — and so many of the resources available to them — is focused on getting thatfirst book deal. What came after was beside the point.It would also be fair to say that the same energy and drive that had landed me a book dealin the first place guided much of my decision-making process in ways that weren’t always
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