Christina Ivazes is an author, speaker, and advocate. As an accomplished retired health educator and program coordinator, she developed and implemented innovative prevention programs and campaigns to promote wellness for children, adolescents, and young adults. She is a four-time presenter at the Annual Wellness Together Conference on student mental health and has garnered many awards for work and service over her career, including the National Daily Point of Light Award.
Christina’s presentation topics, memoir, Lettuce Soup, children’s stories, other publications, and service work are Chamelea Productions. Christina is a member of the California Writer’s Club – Sacramento Chapter and the Placer Gold Writer’s Group. Today, Christina has fifteen progeny, and when she is not traveling, speaking, writing, or visiting family, you will find her in Northern California among the flora of her wildlife habitat.
In her memoir, Lettuce Soup, as an adult, Christina knew she was resilient but didn’t know why. She thought she had healed, but didn’t know childhood trauma still drove many of her adult decisions and relationship challenges. Lettuce Soup peels back these layers. It is about the good and bad moments that make us, and how we can find our way home with the right support.
Living with extreme poverty and her parents’ domestic unrest became the least of Christina’s childhood worries. When their mother dies unexpectedly, Christina and her four siblings are in the hands of their eccentric Beatnik father. Life becomes a wild ride. Her father’s bizarre playbook forces Christina to invent her own survival methods to deal with food insecurity, malnutrition, and isolation in adolescence. The past continues to haunt her as an uneducated single mother. This memoir is a gritty hero’s journey through generational trauma, substance misuse, resiliency, healing, and purpose. Steeped in the enduring tenacity of the human spirit to forge ahead, Lettuce Soup will appeal to fans of Glass Castle, Educated, and Maid.
