My Facebook post: “Took Miles to a barbecue with a bunch of compound archers today. Ate antelope and venison shot and cleaned by a fifteen-year-old girl with her bow, who also prepared our meal. Meanwhile, the younger kids played with sticks in a blazing fire lit in a drought-ridden, no-burn area. Saw that picture again of the rattlesnake shot and left dead with a squirrel in his mouth. (To the bowman’s credit, after he removed his arrow; he ate the snake, but discarded the squirrel.) May be time to switch my son to a recurve bow.”
Had that been a paragraph from my autobiography; it would have read something like this:
I was raised in a family of big game hunters, although the stench or mere thought of freshly skinned and cleaned venison still turns my stomach to this day. Perhaps all that’s because of my lifelong love of animals. But more likely it has to do with the memory of my father slitting a deer–dangling, eyes wide-open and lifeless while hung from the Oak tree in the yard. It came as no surprise to me that Daddy slowly slit the animal’s throat just as my first date ambled up our lane in his Toyota Carolla.
Author: Tonia Allen Gould
About Tonia Allen Gould
Tonia Allen Gould is a writer, public speaker, entrepreneur, and investigative voice who tells the stories most people are afraid to touch. She is the author of the award-winning children’s book Samuel T. Moore of Corte Magore and the CEO of TAGSOURCE, LLC, a 31-year-old marketing agency specializing in branded merchandise and consumer promotions. Her career spans national recognition as a top thought leader in the promotional products industry and a columnist role at InformationWeek, where she explored digital risk, corporate overreach, and organized fraud.
Today, Tonia’s most powerful work emerges at the intersection of truth and trauma. A survivor of stalking, financial fraud, and systemic erasure, she uses her voice—and platform—to expose the systems that silence women who speak out. Her work-in-progress, Invasive Species, is an intense, genre-bending narrative of survival, hypervigilance, and reclaiming personal power.
Through storytelling, advocacy, and an unflinching gaze, Tonia invites readers into a world where justice isn’t guaranteed—but the pursuit of it is relentless.
Learn more at ToniaAllenGould.com
TAGSOURCE.COM
View all posts by Tonia Allen Gould
Tonia Allen Gould 