About MilSpeak

A message from MilSpeak’s president and Marine Corps veteran, Tracy Crow

If this is your first visit to MilSpeak Foundation, Welcome!

If not, thank you for returning and following our progress throughout the past several years of transition and tremendous growth–what we’ve been affectionately referring to around here as MilSpeak 2.0.

Our 2.0 version has included several website redesigns and enhancement of our overall web presence; the resurrection of MilSpeak-sponsored writing workshops; and the exciting re-opening of our publishing division with two imprints, MilSpeak Books and Family of Light Books.

In 2022, the Foundation published six insightful, brilliant books by veterans and family members. In 2023, we published another 6 titles, even earning our first enormously prestigious starred review from Kirkus Reviews for our memoir, Falling Off Horses, by military family member, Karen Donley-Hayes. In spring 2024, we released four titles–two by veterans and two by family members; in September, we’ll release our first poetry collection, The Indignity of Knowing: Perspectives in Verse of a Military Life, by Amber Albritton; in October, we’ll release a compelling memoir from an Iranian translator who served with U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, Land of Tears, by Sanjar Roham (a pen name to safeguard his privacy while he continues to serve the U.S. elsewhere). In June 2025 to coincide with Father’s Day, look for our new memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup & A Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, by James B. Wells.

To view our exciting titles, click on the tabs for MILSPEAK BOOKS and for our spiritually-based imprint, FAMILY OF LIGHT BOOKS. Then click on each book title for the links to its media release and retail sites for purchasing. Every book purchase supports the publication of a forthcoming book by a veteran and family member. We hope you’ll continue to help us help others!

The MilSpeak Story of Two (Marine Corps) Sisters

MilSpeak Foundation grew from MilSpeak Creative Writing Seminars (MCWS), the brainchild of retired and disabled Marine Corps veteran, Sally (Drumm) Parmer, who founded the creative writing workshops in August 2005 at Marine Corps Air Station, Beaufort, South Carolina, after recognizing the healing benefit of writing while pursuing her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina.

Four years later, Sally incorporated MCWS in South Carolina as MilSpeak Foundation, which was recognized as a 501(c)3 public charitable foundation in 2009. Fueled by tireless passion, Sally continued to offer creative writing workshops and developed innovative publishing and performance pathways for the MilSpeak community and beyond. But after a series of personal and family health challenges, Sally passed the MilSpeak Foundation torch to a grad school friend—also a Marine veteran.

Today, MilSpeak Foundation is led by former Marine Corps officer, Tracy Crow, whose diverse background is rooted in the military, corporate, and academic worlds. Her professional experience includes thirty-eight years of executive leadership expertise, crisis management training and leadership, sales training and management, advertising and marketing, public and media relations, corporate and entrepreneurial business development, publication design and editing, and academic teaching.

Tracy is a former assistant professor of journalism and creative writing and the author/editor of six military-themed books. After leaving academia in 2013, she founded On Point Seminars & Workshops, named after her breakthrough writing text, On Point: A Guide to Writing the Military Story, and leads writing workshops, mostly for veterans and their families, around the country and online. On Point Seminars & Workshops is now a division of MilSpeak Foundation, and replaces MCWS. However, much of the original work produced 2009-2014 by veterans through MCWS may still be accessed through an archived site maintained by Sally at milspeak.org.

Although MilSpeak Foundation, Inc., has reorganized under new leadership, what remains the same is its longstanding commitment toward building bridges between the creative arts and our military communities.