“As Nora Jo Fades Away” Update
Earlier this year, ABC 10 News Now introduced you to a U.P. actress turned author.
She’s published a memoir about her experiences caring for her grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s.
And the book has now led to several exciting new things for her.
Lisa Cerasoli Weaver appeared on “General Hospital” for two years in the late 1990s.
In 2006, her grandmother, Nora Jo, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Earlier this year, Lisa published the memoir, “As Nora Jo Fades Away”, about the experience of caring for her.
She says her goal was to produce a book that anyone would want to read, whether they have any experience with Alzheimer’s disease or not.
She had to make sure she had interesting characters but says she didn’t have to work at that.
Lisa says she used to refer to Nora Jo as Archie Bunker done up in very bad drag even before her grandmother began to experience dementia.
A company that produces and sells motivational wake-up call messages approached Lisa over the summer to record some messages for them.
She went to L.A. in August to do that, and while she was there, she arranged a meeting with former talk-show host Leeza Gibbons.
The idea was to have Gibbons contribute a foreword to the book, since Gibbons’ mother was diagnosed with the disease.
Gibbons agreed to do it and invited Lisa to participate in the 2010 National Women’s Conference in Long Beach, California, which is this weekend.
Lisa is heading there tomorrow to promote and sell the book.
She also adapted “As Nora Jo Fades Away” into a stage play that she’d like to have performed locally by the end of the year to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Association.
Lisa even adapted it into a TV pilot which she called “Weaverville”.
And she’ll try to pitch it for production while she’s in the L.A. area this time as well.
If you want to read excerpts from ‘”As Nora Jo Fades Away” or from serasolis previous book, you can do that by going here.