Bear Biographies-A Library of Lived Experiences: Bear Biographies Catalog

Download the Catalog HERE

1. A Day in the Life of a Mogul
Available for Checkout: 2 to 3 pm
Many people ask, how do you do it all? This book explains the importance of mental health and setting boundaries and how to balance multiple tasks.

2. Becoming an Adult Orphan
Available for Checkout: 12 to 4 pm
My journey as a transgender person in the South and what this meant for my life.

3. Everyday with the Oppressor
Available for Checkout: 1 to 4 pm
Racial hardships make me wonder where God is. Being Black allows me the opportunity to choose compassion for my oppressors, daily, with the realization that unforgiveness is a distraction. Being Black for me is operating, with joy, in a state of misery. Being Black is living in a perpetual cycle of compounded grief, unwilling to accept the assurance of invalidated loss. Being Black is looking past disenfranchisement and smiling at the future. Being Black is being rewarded with resilience, an invaluable asset. Being Black is acknowledging that only God can fix broken people I encounter.

4. Exvangelical: A Journey from Faith to Disbelief and Back Again
Available for Checkout: 2 to 4 pm
If you were raised without a faith tradition, or have moved away from the faith of your upbringing, this book can help you understand the changing culture of Christianity in the Bible Belt through a life lived in and out of churches.

5. Finding Where the Light Is
Available for Checkout: 1 to 4 pm
For most of my life, I have felt mostly dark. Not because of my skin color, but because of me functioning as a human being. This is a story of how it took a long time for me to find out that I have Asperger’s and trying to do whatever it takes to find the good through the pitch black night.

6. From Poverty to Professor: Finding Opportunity and Myself Through Education
Available for Checkout: 12 to 1 pm, and 3 to 4 pm
Having been raised in the Midwest, moved to the Bay Area (California), and now settled in Arkansas, I have ridden the rollercoaster of self-confidence, gaining control of my future, and overcoming life challenges as a low-socioeconomic, large-bodied, gay man. Come ask questions about my journey—finding my chosen family, thriving in my social communities, and making decisions to bring me out of spaces and conditions where I couldn’t be myself—and learn how education has been my way out of poverty and into possibilities to be my own independent, confident, and authentic self.

7. In the Presence of a King
Available for Checkout: 1 to 3 pm
The author shares her family's history with the Civil Rights Movement, including her childhood experience of being in the presence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
8. Invisible Illness Club
Available for Checkout: 12 to 3 pm
Being diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease and how it impacted my mental health, physical health career, friendships, romantic partnership, etc. As well as the unsolicited advice of: have you tried yoga, dieting, praying, etc.

9. Life of a Black Law Enforcement Officer and Veteran 
Available for Checkout: 12 to 3 pm
Being a black law enforcement officer and a veteran can present several unique challenges, as individuals in these roles often face overlapping issues related to race, identity, and service. Some of the challenges include: Racial discrimination, Microaggressions, Identity Conflict/Double Consciousness.

10. My Journey as an Immigrant
Available for Checkout: 1 to 2 pm
Stories define us. This is my story as an immigrant in the USA. 

11. My Major is Personal Happiness
Available for Checkout: 2 to 3 pm
My experience as a septuagenarian at UCA.

12. Playing the Spoons: Living With Invisible Illness
Available for Checkout: 1 to 3 pm
Learning how to deal with yours and others’ assumptions about what illness looks and acts like.

13. Passing for Straight: A Bisexual Woman Married to a Man
Available for Checkout: 12 to 4 pm
If someone just looked at me walking through the store with my husband, hand in hand, most people would not think "I wonder if she's bi...". I simply pass for straight. But I'm not; I'm a proud bisexual woman, delighted to be a part of LGBTQ+ community. This can often mean I have to come out multiple times throughout my life as otherwise, people just assume I'm heterosexual. I'm happy to answer any questions about my story, being bisexual, and what that means to me.

14. Present and in the Moment
Available for Checkout: 12 to 1 pm
Present and in the moment suggests that regardless of your circumstances or situation, you will trust yourself to continue to do your diligence and strive for your goal/end result. I will use multiple academic related examples such as a low grade at the midpoint of the semester and what "present and in the moment" looks like.

15. The Gun was Heavy: Protecting my family from the Klan as a five-year-old
Available for Checkout: 2 to 4 pm
Growing up in south Arkansas in 1950 everyone was expected to know their place. My brother crossed an invisible line and put our whole family in danger. We prepared for the worst.

16. Two Exits
Available for Checkout: 12 to 1 pm
Why do I still look for two exits when I'm in a new place or with a large group of unfamiliar people?  This book will describe the time and effort it has taken to understand the lasting effects of growing up in an environment marked by hate and the constant threat of violence during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

17. Unlearning
Available for Checkout: 12 to 4 pm
Growing up Christian in a small Arkansas town, gay was a dirty word and there was no concept for transgender. This is the road of self-discovery from crying in prayer to embracing myself as a queer transman. With a winding past and an uncertain future, every day is a new chance to unlearn bias and grow into a kinder human.

18. Same Sex Attraction, Speaking in Tongues, and the Spirit of Homosexuality
Available for Checkout: 2 to 4 pm
In my pentecostal church, speaking in tongues was evidence of being slain in the holy spirit and same sex attraction was evidence of the spirit of homosexuality (a less than holy one to be sure). I'm a pastor's kid who somehow managed both!