GRAMMY- and Dove Award-winning singer-songwriter Ashley Cleveland did not want to write her memoir. The thought of writing an entire book was overwhelming, and most of all hers “is not an easy story to tell,” she admits in Little Black Sheep: A Memoir (9781434705297, $17.99), releasing this month from David C Cook.

But after attending a workshop led by author Lauren Winner and an arts conference sponsored by a literary journal, Cleveland gained confidence. Bolstered by the encouragement of publishing professionals, she committed herself to the task.

Her memoir doesn’t whitewash her journey. 

“This is the story of the groundwork that paved the way to my faith,” she writes.

Cleveland’s parents were alcoholics in an unlikely marriage; her father believed he was a homosexual, yet her parents were adamant about keeping up appearances. Eventually they divorced and Cleveland was shuttled between her mom and dad, attending many schools and a few churches. She was bullied, struggled with her weight and felt she didn’t belong anywhere.

As a young adult, Cleveland hurtled through her own drug and alcohol addiction. When her family intervened, she entered addiction treatment. Although it helped temporarily, she continued to relapse.

Today, she and husband Kenny Greenberg and their three children live in Nashville. She and Kenny were longtime friends and played together in her band. After they married, Cleveland finally succumbed to her brokenness, where true recovery could begin. 

 “I had learned in treatment that the gateway to recovery was willingness. … I needed the will to be willing, and I began to tell the Lord that if He wanted me to turn my wineglass over to Him, He needed to supply me with the will to do it,” she writes. 

When someone at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting challenged Cleveland to attend 40 meetings in 40 days, she agreed.

 “And on that ordinary day,” she writes, “I began an extraordinary chapter of my life. I began to recover.”

The book’s final pages celebrate how God began to rebuild her life and bring others hope through her experiences.

To order, call David C Cook at 800-743-2514.

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