Acclaimed independent publisher Heliotrope Books is proud to announce the publication of the 10th Anniversary Edition of Catherine Hiller's Just Say Yes: A Marijuana Memoir on National Cannabis Day – April 20, 2025.
A national phenomenon in its initial release, Just Say Yes is a genre-busting first-of-its-kind memoir that illuminated the truths of cannabis consumption for a mainstream audience. Celebrated in two pieces in the New York Times, highlighted in a 5-part series in Snoop Dogg's Merry Jane, praised in HuffPost, Marie Claire, High Times, in 2015, Hiller's book sparked a new curiosity about the plant.
Here's the Times interview with her:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/nyregion/after-50-years-of-smoking-marijuana-her-life-turned-out-nicely.html
Whether buying an ounce for an octogenarian couple, hanging out with the film crew of the original Woodstock, or getting stoned with her son on a college tour, Hiller was the perfect guide to the pleasures of pot.
Now, a decade later, at age 78, the author (creator of the popular Substack The Pleasure Principle) examines our country's "post-legalization" era. The new book features nine new chapters and a foreword by veteran activist Steve DeAngelo, "Father of the Modern Cannabis Industry" and star of Discovery's Weed Wars.
Today, more people smoke weed on a daily basis than drink alcohol. As millions of people are discovering the benefits—and drawbacks—of regular cannabis use, Just Say Yes is more relevant and entertaining than ever.
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Catherine Hiller's latest novel, Cybill Unbound, was published on February 14, 2023.
The book features a sensuous older woman who is open to sexual adventure. It chronicles her life and loves over a thirty-year period, ending with the chapter, "Passion in the Pandemic."
If you're over forty-five and have ever fantasized about giving in to temptation, this book is for you.
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"Readers (especially women) who enjoy candid stories of risk, transformation, exploration, and social inspection will find Cybill Unbound fun, intriguing, titillating, and thought-provoking...Libraries seeking fiction that traverses erotic and psychological growth much in the way Erica Jong did in her Fear of Flying will find this journey of a middle-aged woman a satisfying contrast."
-- Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review
"Odd as it may sound, Catherine Hiller's new novel, Cybill Unbound, reminds one of Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, in which he explores the eternal conflict that civilization thrusts on each and every one: the Pleasure Principle (our reckless, heedless childhood ID that's always with us) vs. the Reality Principle (the policeperson inside demanding strict adherence to the rules). Cybill embodies this conflict in almost everything she says--and, most tantalizingly, does. But what's most interesting about such conflict is that she thrives on it. Without pleasure, what's the point of living? … It is not just a good read--which it is in spades--but an instructive one. As much psychological and sociological as novelistic, Cybill Unbound deserves to be read by everyone, male and female alike."
-- Stanley Hoffman, author of Solomon's Temple
"Continuously titillating, never salacious."
--JWB, Amazon reviewer
Click HERE for an excerpt, first published in NextTribe.
Sign up HERE for Catherine Hiller's Substack, The Pleasure Principle: Savoring Life After 50.