A native Houstonian and a graduate of Texas Tech University, Amy W. Daughters has been a freelance writer for more than a decade — mostly covering college football and sometimes talking about her feelings. Her debut novel, You Cannot Mess This Up: A True Story That Never Happened (She Writes Press), was selected as the Silver Winner for Humor in the 2019 Foreword INDIES and the Overall Winner for Humor/Comedy in the 2020 Next Generation Indie Awards. Her second book, Dear Dana: That time I went crazy and wrote all 580 of my Facebook friends a handwritten letter (She Writes Press, 2022), has won several awards, including the 2023 Reader’s Favorite Gold Medal for NonFiction Relationships, and caught the attention of Kelly Clarkson! An amateur historian, hack golfer, charlatan fashion model, and regular on the ribbon dancing circuit, Amy — a proud former resident of Blackwell, England, and Dayton, Ohio, currently lives in Tomball, Texas, a suburb of Houston. She is married to a foxy computer person, Willie, and is the lucky mother of two amazing sons, Will and Matthew.
Amy Daughters
Your Pitch
It’s 2014, and Amy Daughters is a 46-year old stay-at-home mom living in Dayton, Ohio. She returns to her hometown of Houston over the Thanksgiving holiday to discuss her parents’ estate—and finds herself hurled back in time.
In her novel, You Cannot Mess This Up: A True Story That Never Happened, Daughters finds herself in 1978, forced to spend 36 hours in her childhood home with her nuclear family, including her 10-year-old self. Over the next day and a half, she reconsiders every feeling she’s ever had, discusses current events with friends and relatives who had since died, gets over-served at a party with her parents’ friends, and is treated to lunch at the Bonanza Sirloin Pit.
Along with getting reacquainted with 8-track tapes, wood-paneled station wagons, and Dippety-Do hair gel, Daughters begins to appreciate that memories are malleable and wholly dependent on who is doing the remembering. She redefines her difficult relationships with her family members and ultimately realizes that her life story matters and is profoundly significant.
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