Press Kit

For

Denise Jones

Author of

Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done?

Author Denise Jones was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.

Molested by multiple men, including family members, before

the age of six, her life took a much more drastic turn when she

dropped out of school at an early age and began a life of crime to

support her newly formed drug habit. After nearly 15 years of

raucous living, today Denise turned her life around and today she

holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree.

As a certified HIV/AIDS counselor, deliverance minister, and

inspirational speaker, amongst other things, Denise currently

travels promoting her new book, Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done: The

Story of Denise Jones a Diamond from the Rough. Offering

inspirational and life-encouraging messages to people from all

walks of life, Denise is available to speak at your next event or

conference.

For bookings and interviews, contact Traneisha Jones with T. Jones PR at

(225)235-6706 or tee-jones@hotmail.com.

1.) What is the significance of the title Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done?

2.) What was your life like growing up?

3.) Was it hard to forgive and move on from your past?

3.) How is your relationship with your mother?

4.) What made you finally decide to change your lifestyle?

5.) What advice or words of encouragement would you give to others

with backgrounds similar to yours?

Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done? candidly chronicles one woman’s jour-

ney from life on Chicago’s Westside involving poverty, incest,

drug addiction , incarceration and lesbianism to sobriety, spiritual

redemption and inner peace. In Denise’s words, “ Deep insecurity,

drug addiction and role confusion tormented me for years. Often I

wondered if I were a boy or a girl; if I were human or an animal.

Who am I? What am I? Why am I?”

Do not miss your opportunity to be touched by her powerful story.

Her message to the masses is, “ Therefore if any man be in Christ

Jesus, he is a new creature; old things are passed away and behold,

all things are new ( 2 Corinthians 5:17).”

Author Bio

Book Recap

Interview Questions:

Pro

mo S

heet

Denise Jones was born in Chicago, IL on

November 10, 1960. As the oldest of seven,

Denise’s mother would often leave her to

care for her siblings, while she went on

drug binges that ended only when she

returned to their home in Rockwell Garden

Housing Projects to throw wild sex and

drug parties. Her mother’s lifestyle

eventually lured her, and at the age of

twelve Denise found her self dropping out

of school and quickly becoming a heroine

addict. Driven partly by her mother’s

lifestyle, and partly by her own dark past

which included molestation by her

grandfather, uncle, cousin and several other

men by the age of six; Denise led a lesbian

lifestyle laced with drugs and crime for over

fifteen years. Today she is redeemed.

At the age of 26, Denise gave her life to the

Lord Jesus Christ and the rest, as they say, is history. She returned to school and

earned her GED from Olive-Harvey College in 1993. She went on to graduate

from National Louis University in 2007 with a Bachelor’s degree in Applied

Behavior and in 2009 she graduated from Spertus College with a Master’s degree

in Nonprofit Management and a concentration in Human Services

Administration.

Today, Denise is a certified HIV/AIDS counselor with specialized training in

strategic planning, grant writing development, consulting and board develop-

ment for non-profit organizations. Denise is also a deliverance minister, author

and inspirational speaker. She has over 10 years experience inspiring small

business owners, entrepreneurs, nonprofit leadership groups and individuals in a

career or life transition to use their gifts and abilities to master their goals, obtain their destines and achieve success beyond their wildest dreams. Denise has an

innate ability to develop managers and counselors at all levels into powerful

leaders and innovative thinkers. She believes strongly in applying a holistic

approach to success and works hard to promote balance in all areas of her

client’s lives. Whether it is business, career, family, relationships or personal

satisfaction, Denise is an expert at motivating clients to see the big picture,

create a vision, overcome obstacles and define a realistic plan to begin living a life

they love.

After defying all odds and conquering her own demons, today, Denise has great

compassion and love for helping others. This love and compassion has inspired

her to tell her story in her first book, “Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done?”. This

candid, true-life account is a heartwarming and inspirational story about a little

girl whose mother failed her. It is also about choices – good ones as well as bad

ones. It pains Denise to remember the hurt she caused in her community and in

her family. As a result, she has made it her life commitment to help change the

lives of other individuals who are presently coming up on the rough side of the

mountain.

Author D

enise J

ones

For more information:

Traneisha Y. Jones

tee-jones@hotmail.com

(225)235-6706

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done: The Story of Denise Jones a Diamond from the Rough

Chicago, IL- April 13, 2011- Mothers are supposed to be nurturers. They are supposed to be the ones who

protect their children from harm and guide them in a direction that will lead to productive and fruitful lives. Back

then, Denise Jones’ mother failed her. A product of her own upbringing, Denise’s mother, raised her in the most

gruesome environment imaginable. Following in her mother’s treacherous path, Denise took on the same demons

that had usurped authority in her mother’s life.

In this heart-wrenching autobiography, Author Denise Jones expounds on her triumph over life’s obstacles- from

childhood molestation, prostitution, drug addiction, and prison; to becoming a successful inspirational speaker,

minister, and self-published author.

“From the first chapter (Annie Mae) to the testimonies under (The Witness Protection Program), I could not stop

turning the pages. Ms. Jones has let us into her former “shady world” with binoculars on. I traveled through her

gritty journey like I was standing right there with her, with my mouth wide open in disbelief and shock.”

In this candid, true-life account, Denise Jones depicts her rocky upbringing and recounts her search to desperately

find herself. Am I a girl? Am I a boy? Am I even human? After many cycles of living the street life and facing a sixty

year prison sentence, Denise turns to drugs one last time. However, on that day, not even the dope wanted any

dealings with her. Everywhere she turned to get high she was blocked. “I knew then, God was trying to tell me

something.” Having dropped out of school in the fourth grade, Jones goes on to recount her journey from prison

to promise, which includes her obtaining her GED and eventually a Master’s degree, and an appearance on The

Oprah Winfrey Show. In addition to her own redemption, Jones also touches on her mother’s recovery, and the

restoration of their relationship as mother and daughter.

Since releasing Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done in Summer 2010, Jones has had several television and print interviews.

Currently, she is touring to promote the book and has made appearances at The Men & Women’s Homeless

Shelter/HIV Recovery Center in Belize, Central America where she was listed as a top motivational speaker, The

2010 Black Women’s Expo, where she was a top selling author, and at several prisons and county jails in Illinois,

Wisconsin, Florida, and Georgia.

For more information about Denise Jones’ Who Said It Could Be Done, log on to

www.whosaiditcouldntbedone.com

###

Publication Date: May 2010

Genre: Autobiography

ISBN: Paperback: 978-1-4520-0354-2; Hardcover: 978-4520-0353-5

Retail Price: Paperback: $19.99; Hardcover: $24.99

To book Denise Jones for an engagement, book signing or special guest appearance,

please send an e-mail to T.Jones PR, Marketing and Writing Boutique at

tee-jones@hotmail.com.

To order review copies, please send an e-mail to dmercedes700@sbcglobal.net.

Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done? Is available wherever books are sold, including

online at www.authorhouse.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.amazon.com.

Request Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done? at your local bookstore.

Pain (Excerpt from Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done?)

My earliest memory is of pain. I remember lying across my mother’s lap on the living room sofa very early

one Saturday morning. She was wasted from the night before. I could smell a creepy odor climbing out of her

mouth. Years later, I learned it was the tart tinge of alcohol, forged with cigarette smoke camouflaged by Big

Red chewing gum. Mother and her cheap wine had become one. The sultry lure of the liquid spirit had a be-

witching way of overtaking her, causing her to believe she possessed incredible abilities. The prolific im-

pulses came sharply; this time in the form of surgical powers.

Mother rummaged through the house searching for a sewing needle. She found the small piece of metal

in one of the kitchen drawers, between a stack of folded grocery receipts and unopened junk mail. She burned

the tip on the blue flame coming from our stove and then dipped it in rubbing alcohol. I can still remember the

hissing noise that broke the uneasy silence as the hot steel collided with the cool liquid. She returned to her

same position on the sofa and put my head back on her lap. She looked down at me and smiled, then pressed a

small piece of ice against my earlobe to deaden my nerves, but it did not work. I cringed in blinding pain as

my chilled skin cracked open under the sharp blow of that needle, then the slow sliding of it through my flesh.

I screamed powerlessly at the top of my lungs and struggled pointlessly to free myself from the ‘giant hand’

possessing the ‘evil dagger’.

Mother, still high and obviously oblivious to my mangled emotions and mounting agony, coldly

immobilized my whirling head, then stabbed me a second time, ramming the ‘dagger’ clean through my other

ear lobe. The nurturer who caressed my head upon her lap just moments earlier had grown fangs. My struggle

was futile against her greedy assault. She seemed amused, pleased even, at the escalating level of my terror. I

looked up at her again, but this time in stark confusion; she was still smiling, and then she started laughing.

Her wicked laughter taunted my dizzy head, which was still pinned to her hard, collaborating knee. I shivered

in fear, my teeth chattered. A quiet stream of blood flowed from my nose, but no tears would follow. Suddenly

I was more afraid than I had ever been, especially of my mother’s hand. Her hand had frightened me many

times before; it had always been harsh, but that day it was harsher, colder, than I had ever experienced before.

Her hand seemed hungry somehow; salivating as if it wanted to kill me and swallow me whole. I felt a need to

keep my mother’s hand back, but her teeth were still showing and that frightened me. I shut my eyes tightly,

took in a deep breath… and screamed some more. At three years old, that was all I could do. I suppose that ear

piercing was an omen of the pattern of my early life: hurt and abuse often inflicted by my mother, and me

unable to do anything about it. I became an unread paper back in my mother’s hands: she was bending me

backward as if she were interested in the pages of my life, but line after line went unread.

My preface, my forward, my contents, each chapter were all but mere shadows in her hand; jumbled

messages of oddly constructed paragraphs of meaninglessness. She could not decipher the words of the script.

They were left dangling on the pages of chance. I didn’t understand why she did not respond to the many times

I reached for her. My love that I offered unconditionally, the smile upon my face that lit whatever room she

entered, the interest I took in her walk; her smell, the sound of her voice, even her slap and the pain that it

caused on the side of my face. I was attentive to every line that she wrote, but my life was not translated. The

late nights I stayed awake listening for her keys to jingle in the door, or to hear her cowboy boots scrape

across the floor; the noise I made, the tears I cried and the tears I carried in my heart; the trouble I started, the

fights I had, the mistakes I made; nothing I did seemed to matter. My emotional state went undetected, like an

unsolved mystery.

To book

Denise Jones for your

next event or for

interviews e-mail

Traneisha Jones,

T. Jones PR & Marketing

at

tee-jones@hotmail.com

or call

(225)235-6706.

N’Digo Magapaper

Harvest Christian Show

Mahogany Life Magazine

Street Wise Magazine

CAN TV, Taking it to the Street

CAN TV, Information Now

The Streets Don’t Love You Back Radio Show–

Arizona

WVOL– 1470 AM- Nashville, TN

The Kankakee Daily Journal

Joliet Daily Journal

Interview with Nate Rodgers

The Black Women’s Expo, 2010

Why Girl’s Cry?- Esther House

Appearances & Interviews

WWW . WHOSAIDITCOU LDNTBEDONE . COM

Cornell Intervention Center

Hay Market Treatment Facility

Grace House Recovery Home for Women

The Genesis House

The Bonaventure House

Chicago House for HIV

Roseland Residential Treatment Center

Florida Drug Treatment House

Wings of Hope Prison Ministry

Mustard Seed Homeless Shelter

Olive Branch Homeless Shelter

Salvation Army Homeless Shelter

HIV Recovery Center–

Belize, Central America

Chicago County Jail

Book Reviews

For additional info., log on to:

The book is a must read for anyone who has lost their way. It

is both inspiring and heart warming and will certainly give hope to the hopeless, letting them know whatever vices holds

them captive, nothing is too small or too great (If they desire to be free they can) and nothing is IMPOSSIBLE!!!

- Linda P. Williams– Chicago, IL

I recommend this story to those who are looking for a second

chance at life.

- Teresa Beasley– Indianapolis, IN

An amazing story - I would recommend it to anyone to read.

- Love Books, Location unknown