New York-born author explores segregated Florida, unexpected belonging, Nature, resilience and the power of telling difficult memories through a child’s eyes

BROOKLYN, NY, UNITED STATES, August 31, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- What happens when a New York-born girl is uprooted to a Florida dairy farm in the 1950s and grows up amid segregation, family upheaval, profound loss and circumstances far beyond a child’s control?

Author Michaelia Morgan explores that question in her debut memoir, That Yankee Girl: The Early Years, available September 5, 2026, in paperback and e-book, with the audiobook following October 6.

Told through the eyes of the child who experienced it, That Yankee Girl offers an unfiltered account of growing up in a segregated Florida community during the 1950s and ’60s. Morgan writes about family dysfunction, childhood adversity, juvenile hall and reform camp, but also about the unexpected people, places and experiences that helped her survive.

Rather than revisiting her childhood primarily through an adult perspective, Morgan deliberately preserves the factual, curious and sometimes humorous viewpoint of the girl she once was.

“My mission is to tell the truth about an unjust world through the factual eye of the child who lived it, showing the harsh realities of a segregated small town, imperfections that riddle a dysfunctional family, solace I found in Nature, and unexpected people who kept me safe when everything else fell apart.”

Finding Family Across the Tracks
One of the memoir’s most unexpected themes is the sense of belonging Morgan found within the local Black community.

Growing up in a segregated Southern environment, Morgan experienced racial divisions firsthand. Yet some of the people who offered her the greatest sense of unconditional protection and belonging lived on the “other side of the tracks.”

Where the Dirt Heals
The Florida dairy farm, its animals, open pastures and enormous, gnarled oak trees gave Morgan a place where she could simply exist when the human world around her felt unstable.

The natural landscape became one of the threads connecting the child she was with the writer she would become.

A New York Beginning and a Southern Childhood
Morgan was born in Syracuse, New York, before her family moved to Florida.

Her New York roots carry another unusual piece of family history: her mother was crowned Miss Brooklyn in 1936. Her mother was also a writer, making That Yankee Girl both a memoir of childhood and, for Morgan, a continuation of a literary inheritance.

Morgan began writing about her childhood decades ago. She continued revisiting, expanding and assembling the memories that eventually became That Yankee Girl.

After becoming a single mother at 38, she returned to the stories while balancing motherhood and work, often writing in stolen moments and sacrificing sleep to preserve memories she felt compelled to tell.

Morgan narrates the audiobook herself, using the blended Southern dialects she grew up hearing including influences from Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, as well as Black and white Southern speech.

She also incorporates lullabies her mother sang to her.

The result is an audio experience intended to preserve not only the events of childhood, but the sounds, rhythms and voices of the world in which those events occurred.

The audiobook will be released October 6, Morgan’s birthday, and is synchronized with Amazon’s Whispersync technology.

In 1982, after leaving the corporate world, Morgan embarked on another radical reinvention: she rode her bicycle across the country.

Morgan hopes to return to Manhattan around October 6 for her birthday and audiobook release, with plans being explored for an indie bookstore reading and signing.

The potential appearance would bring together several threads of the memoir’s story: a New York-born author, the daughter of a former Miss Brooklyn, a Southern childhood remembered decades later, and the launch of the audiobook in Morgan’s own distinctive voice.

About That Yankee Girl: The Early Years
That Yankee Girl: The Early Years is the first volume in Michaelia Morgan’s planned life-story series.

Written through the eyes of a child, the memoir explores segregation, family dysfunction, childhood adversity, unexpected community, Nature, independence and resilience without descending into self-pity.

It is a story for readers interested in American history and the lived experience of the mid-century South, outsiders, as well as anyone who has experienced a complicated childhood and searched for an unexpected path toward healing.

The book is available in paperback, e-book and audiobook formats.

About Michaelia Morgan
Michaelia Morgan is an author, storyteller and lifelong learner whose career has crossed technology, education, business, performance and the arts.

Born in Syracuse, New York, and raised in Florida, Morgan draws upon decades of memories, writing, photographs and family history in That Yankee Girl: The Early Years.

Her debut memoir is dedicated to “all the wounded children who found their way toward healing.”

Book: That Yankee Girl: The Early Years
Author: Michaelia Morgan
Formats: Paperback | E-book | Audiobook E-book: $3.99; Paperback: $14.95 Release: September 5, 2026
Audiobook Release: October 6, 2026
Purchase That Yankee Girl: The Early Years on Amazon

Michaelia Morgan
That Yankee Girl
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