Hi Everyone,
Healing’s pub date is April 12, but I received a box of books already—very exciting. Also, readers who pre-ordered from the City of Asylum Bookstore will get their signed copies of Healing in the mail soon. I’ll continue to sign books ordered from City of Asylum. They ship anywhere and it’s a fun way to support my local independent bookstore.
Upcoming Virtual Events
I am doing three virtual events right around pub date. They are listed on my website, but I also put the links below:
April 12, Powell’s Books in Portland, OR, 5pm PT, 8pm ET
April 13, Books & Books in Miami, 1pm ET
April 18, City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, 7pm ET! *If you come to the CoA event in person there will be a small party afterwards. Good news: The liquor license allows us to serve wine! (You never know in PA.)
Book Group Discussion Guides
I put together book group discussion guides for Healing and The Shift. You can find those on my website. I’m also willing to zoom in to your book group meeting. Contact me and we’ll make it work!
Writing a Book
A little bit about how I wrote Healing…To explain, I have to return to my second book, The Shift, which tells the story of one real twelve-hour hospital shift I worked. Because The Shift covered one day, writing it required me to adhere to the structure of a typical hospital day and the rhythm of a nurse’s schedule.
Writing Healing was completely different from that—completely. I had the structure of my diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer, but other than that there was no structure. Stories of my experiences as a patient alternate with stories of my work as a nurse in oncology and in hospice. A family hiking trip to Harper’s Ferry, and a bike trip from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C. are also in the book, as are my regular workouts and our Christmas dinner from the year when I was diagnosed.
As I wrote, I could only see a little bit ahead of whatever section I had just finished, which meant I literally had no idea how the book would end. I was navigating a maze of memory, hoping for the best. That was unsettling because I had to trust that if I kept writing I would end up with a book. And yet, it worked! My trust was rewarded.
The point of all this is that there is no one way to approach writing. When people ask me how to be a writer, I always feel that I don’t have a good answer. Now I can say that there are no rules, except perhaps for one my agent passed on to me:
Hugs to all—
Theresa
P.S. Today in Pittsburgh felt like Spring!
I love that quote, and I love even more the photo of all those books! Congratulations, and I’m looking forward to the day when your book will appear on my kindle!