Daphna Edwards Ziman picked Independence Day to hold a book launch party in part because the author’s bestselling novel carries with it a message of freedom.
By Paul Sisolak / Special to The Malibu Times
Daphna Edwards Ziman is best associated with her philanthropic and charity work advocating for changes in the nation’s foster care system, and it is in this area that the Malibu resident channeled her own life experiences into her book, “The Gray Zone.”
The surprise literary hit was released last month and has quickly catapulted up the venerated New York Times bestseller list, number 33 this week, to be exact, in its fictionalized account of a young runaway searching for her identity in a world of sex trafficking and slavery.
Ziman brings these problems to light in her first stab at fiction, a highly personal endeavor that came about as a form of therapy through writing. The author began work on “The Gray Zone” in 2008 in the midst of a divorce.
“I realized divorce was so horrible and the only way to escape it was to run away in my book,” she said. “I live vicariously through my characters.”
Her protagonist, Kelly Jensen, shares similar parallels in her flight from a broken foster home, where the “gray” in the book’s title conveys the real sense that nothing in this subject matter’s universe is ever really black or white for anyone.
“She’s thrown into the foster care system, which, at best, it’s a revolving door,” Ziman said. “Nobody knows your name and you go from home to home, and school to school. The only way she can preserve some humanity is to find some resilience in escaping.”
It is this anonymity that Ziman has tried to turn around as longtime president of nonprofit Children Uniting Nations, which she founded in 1999. It provides two mentoring programs to at-risk and foster youth.
Many of them are at risk because the foster system has become a breeding ground in some circles for opportunists looking to make money by placing adopted minors into the sex trafficking trade.
“In every crate, there are a few bad apples and those children are hurt,” she said. “The foster system pays parents for the deterioration of children. We’ve stopped cherishing family … I’d like to change that.”
Ziman said 75 percent of all girls forced into sex trafficking hail from the foster system. Additionally, 78 percent of all incarcerated inmates also grew up in child welfare.
Cynthia Heard, executive vice president of programs for Children Uniting Nations, said many foster children are unwanted, neglected, or eventually aged out of the system, with nowhere to turn. A 25-year veteran in child welfare, Heard said more awareness needs to be brought to light about this; in addition to the trafficking, homelessness and drug abuse abound, but it remains a problem largely ignored in America.
“These children … are such a vulnerable group,” she said. “Communities and individuals seem to have forgotten about foster children. They’re out there by themselves.”
Ziman first met her adopted daughter, Michele, through the foster care system when she was five years old. The adoption was made official when she was nine. Michele Ziman is now 23 and a student at The Los Angeles Film School.
“Most of the people I’ve encountered who had been in the foster system came out much stronger and able in the end,” Michele said.
The party at Ziman’s Malibu penthouse on July 4 was a triple occasion: one, for “The Gray Zone;” two, for the Fourth of July; and three, a birthday party for Ziman’s partner, Rod Sherwood, CEO of the Westwood One Radio network.
Dick Guttman, Ziman’s spokesman, said, in addition to the Times bestseller list, “The Gray Zone” currently sits on Amazon’s top 10 selling hardcovers of the week, 51st overall on the online bookseller’s Web site.
“She’s been working all her life to mitigate this [through writing],” Guttman said.
While penning “The Gray Zone,” Ziman went through a J.K. Rowling-esque turn of rejections before a sudden, breakthrough worldwide success. Initially, publishers weren’t warm to her compelling thriller.
“They told me the normal publishers are old hat and don’t take risks,” she said. “I didn’t even know if I’d get an agent. The whole thing was a fluke.”
Ziman signed with Greenleaf Book Group Press and, in the past month, film rights have been purchased for the novel, with Ziman set to pen the screen adaptation. The author is also working on her second book, a “dramedy” tentatively titled “The Final Punch.” A follow-up to “The Gray Zone” may also be in the works.
Ziman’s Web site is www.daphnaedwardsziman.com. For more information on Children Uniting Nations and the group’s mission, visit www.childrenunitingnations.org