Anne Spry
Former Newspaper Owner & Book Publisher
After living in South America as a young woman, Anne Spry spent a lifetime seeking a stable home, mostly in Missouri. She put her journalism degree from the University of Missouri to work in a 27-year career as a newspaper editor and publisher in Hamilton, MO. During that time, she also earned a master’s degree in communication arts from Memphis State University.
After selling the newspaper she moved to Kansas City, and book publishing became her retirement avocation.
Destined for another move when her second husband died, Spry was blessed to go back to her roots and settle on ancestral land a few miles from where her parents grew up near Topeka, Kansas. She lives on five acres with incredible views of spacious Kansas skies, plants flowers, sings with a Sweet Adelines chorus in Topeka, and is active in Kansas Authors Club.
Living On Laughter
Could You Use a Laugh or Two?
Step into the delightful world of small-town life, motherhood, misadventures, and newspaper deadlines—with a cast of unforgettable characters like Mad Mother, Lemonade Man, The Kid, and Motorcycle Mama.
In this heartwarming and hilarious memoir, former humor columnist and newspaper publisher, Anne Spry, shares decades of personal columns that shine a humorous light on the everyday struggles and joys of parenting, aging, home repair gone wrong, and life with a city-boy-turned-country-husband.
Originally published in 2014 as Letters from Home, this refreshed and re-imagined edition includes updated reflections and a newfound perspective from the golden years of retirement. With warmth, wit, and unflinching honesty, Anne invites readers to laugh at life’s curve-balls, find meaning in the messes, and celebrate the people who shape our stories.
Whether you’re a parent, writer, caregiver, or simply someone who loves a good laugh, Living on Laughter will leave you smiling, sighing, and maybe even picking up a pen to capture your own stories.
Taking The Long Way Home
“I thought I was escaping war. Instead, I found my way home.”
In the early 1970s, a wannabe hippie with a rootless, dysfunctional childhood searched for peace amid campus protests and cultural upheaval. Just weeks from earning her journalism degree, she faced a life-changing decision: let her new husband be drafted to Vietnam — or join him in the Peace Corps and leave the U.S. behind.
Taking the Long Way Home: A Peace Corps Memoir of Brazil and Finding Home in the 1970s is the true story of a young American couple’s transformative journey to Northeast Brazil — a region still reeling from a failed revolution. There, amid intense heat, poverty, and beauty, they built a school, launched grassroots projects, and found themselves immersed in a world both foreign and deeply human.
Now, decades later, as her generation once again faces deep questions about democracy and America’s role on the world stage, Anne Spry reflects on the lessons Brazil taught her: about identity, resilience, service — and the quiet, enduring work of finding a home within your own heart.A moving coming-of-age memoir for baby boomers, Peace Corps alumni, travel memoir lovers, and readers who believe that growth often begins far from where we started.
"This captivating memoir demonstrates how our lives are influenced by the way we traverse our different paths. It’s an extraordinary articulation of a maturing life experience while engaging with a new primitive world as a Peace Corps volunteer. Taking the Long Way Home reflects energy, enthusiasm, idealism, and resilience."
-- Dr. Walt Menninger, psychiatrist for the Washington D.C. Peace Corps Office in the initial years of the organization, Former President & CEO The Menninger Clinic