Tag: narrative nonfiction

new essay: ‘poison in a coffee cup’ in pangyrus lit mag

The Boston-area literary magazine Pangyrus recently published a braided essay I wrote about the impact of being severely allergic to food containing dairy products. The incident around which the piece is constructed was my accidental March 2023 ingestion of some kind of dairy product in spite of ordering an oat milk latte and a vegan burrito (presumably dairy-free) at an upscale Seattle coffee shop. My rapid consumption led to a trip to the ER.

Ironically, later that afternoon, I had been slated to attend a session at the writers’ conference about writing about one’s disabilities. I was most looking forward to meeting writer Sandra Beasley, someone whose work has delved into her life-altering and life-threatening food allergies. Sadly, I was sitting in an ER bay with epinephrine and steroids flowing through my veins when Sandra started speaking on her panel. I had to later watch her session online from the safety of my Boston area home.

Here’s how the Pangyrus essay begins:

A black bulldog, strapped into a red harness, peers over its person’s shoulder and stares at me. We’re in a line at a small, indie coffee shop, where I’m jonesing for some of that famous Seattle coffee. The bulky canine in front of me, indifferently sniffing the air once I become a boring subject to observe, is likely hoping for a morsel of some of the baked goods the scents of which are subtly threaded through the heavy coffee aroma. 

A New Englander, I’m a regular at my local Dunkin’ Donuts, although I occasionally go to Starbucks to splurge for an oat milk latte. Most mornings, I use my Keurig machine to brew two cups of coffee, hoping that the caffeine will force my brain to focus, like when you need to reboot a laptop. Control. Alt. Delete. 

This coffee shop near Lake Union, not far from one of the several Google office buildings in the city, is brimming with Millennials and Gen Zers, many in running gear and coated with a thin sheen of perspiration. The room is loud as benign chatter bounces off the spartan walls. I feel the sound in my chest. Scott and I — early Gen Xers — definitely feel our age.

To read the rest of the essay in which I experience anaphylactic shock — see the pics above of me in the ER AFTER I’d been injected with medications, when the swelling around my eyes had lessened and I was able to breath easier — click here.

Image credit: Pangyrus.

uncomfortably numb’s now an audiobook: get 50% off!

Uncomfortably Numb — my medical memoir about the life-altering impact of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis — has been transformed into an audiobook.

I can’t tell you how odd it is to have this intensely personal story about my health and ultimate MS diagnosis, which occurred months after my 65-year-old mother died from a fast-moving cancer, read aloud by somebody else.

When I was first approached about having the memoir professionally narrated, I was excited but also concerned. How could anyone possibly use the emphasis I intended, the specific tone of voice that was in my head when I wrote those words, I wondered.

Well, in the trusted hands of narrator Erin deWard, I fret no longer.

While the audiobook is available on Amazon, it is also on sale for half price at Audiobooks.com until the end of January.

I’m thrilled to have Uncomfortably Numb now available to those who prefer audible formats. Let me know what you think!

Image credit: Audiobooks.com.

teaching narrative nonfiction with bay path university’s mfa program

A beloved colleague of mine from my western Massachusetts newspaper reporting days — Suzanne Strempek Shea, with whom I used to work at the Springfield, Mass. newspaper — designed a wonderful Narrative Medicine area of study for Bay Path University’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program.

It’s a new track in the MFA program (I earned my MFA in creative nonfiction there in 2017) and is also offered as a stand-alone certificate program. Last June, I participated in a Bay Path MFA webinar to discuss my 2020 medical memoir, Uncomfortably Numb, where Suzanne and I talked virtually about the book as well as narrative medicine.

Fast-forward to early February 2021: I was contacted by MFA Program Director Leanna James Blackwell and asked if I could take over the already-in-progress Intro to Narrative Medicine class because Suzanne had to take a temporary leave due to an injury. (This is such a weird confluence of events, an injury preventing her from teaching narrative medicine.) Luckily, I was already familiar with the Canvas learning management system which they utilize — also used by Northeastern University where I teach journalism classes — and had already read one of the main texts.

Now as I plan to have my second evening Zoom class with a group of seven writers, I finally feel as though I’ve got a handle on the class and its rhythm, and cannot wait for the rest of the semester to unfold as we devour Writing Hard Stories by Melanie Brooks, Bodies of Truth edited by Dinty W. Moore, Erin Murphy, et al., and engage with the students’ creative nonfiction work about issues of illness and trauma.

Meanwhile, we’re sending healing vibes to Suzanne!

springfield (ma) paper features ‘uncomfortably numb’

Screenshot 2020-05-25 19.09.33The Republican — the daily newspaper for which I used to work way back in the day, back when it was called The Union-News –ran a feature story about my medical memoir, Uncomfortably Numb, and my experiences with MS.

Here’s how it begins:

In her new book, “Uncomfortably Numb: A memoir about the life-altering diagnosis of multiple sclerosis,” West Springfield native Meredith O’Brien describes how she went overboard one Christmas season after a semester teaching ended and she proceeded to tackle “a ton of activities, too many, actually.”

Fatigue hit her hard while she was watching her son at a Christmas musical event at the high school in Southborough where she now lives. “Quite quickly, my thinking became foggy and my legs were on the verge of giving out,” O’Brien recalls. “I had to ask my husband to drive me home immediately. I spent the next several days in bed, unable to do what I wanted because my body needed the rest.”

Read the rest of the piece here.

Thank you to editor Cynthia Simison –who was my bureau chief in the Westfield, MA bureau — and to writer Cori Urban for the piece.

The article includes a plug for my June 1, 1-2 p.m. webinar with Bay Path University’s MFA in creative nonfiction to discuss “The Art of the Medical Memoir.” Sign up for the free webinar here.

Image credit: The Republican.

 

june 1: free webinar on ‘narrative medicine and the art of the medical memoir’

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I’ll be joining award-winning author, Bay Path University writer-in-residence and faculty member, the wonderful Suzanne Strempek Shea on June 1 for a free webinar where we’ll discuss “Narrative Medicine and the Art of the Medical Memoir.”

Hosted by Bay Path University’s MFA in creative nonfiction program, the one-hour webinar, from 1-2 p.m., is open to the public. Register here.

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Strempek Shea is the author of many books including Songs from a Lead-Lined Room: Notes — High and Low — From My Journey Through Breast Cancer and Radiation, a memoir writer Anita Shreve called, “one of those books that changes your life forever.”

Writer Michael Carlton said in Yankee Magazine, Songs from a Lead-Lined Room “is one of the most moving and important books ever written about the extraordinary pressures the disease places not only on the victim, but on family and friends as well.”

Strempek Shea and I worked together at the Springfield, MA daily newspaper, The Republican, and she has written blurbs for a number of my books. It was our connection that resulted in my attending and graduating from the Bay Path University MFA in creative nonfiction program, which she was instrumental in creating.

Please join us for a warm conversation between friends about the craft of writing about the innately personal topics of illness and medicine.

Image credits: Bay Path University MFA in creative nonfiction program, Amazon.

writers’ day panel at BPU talks current events & nonfiction

bay path writers day 2017CBay Path University played host to its 16th Writers’ Day this past weekend, as scribes talked about how to effectively read one’s work aloud in front of a crowd (Charles Coe, All Sins Forgiven poet and author extraordinaire!) and how to turn family documents, handwritten letters, and memories into an intergenerational memoir (the fabulous Patricia Reis, Motherlines author).

bay path writers day 2017BThe final panel was packed with tales from three writers–Kinship of Clover’s Ellen Meeropol, This is How It Begins’ Joan Dempsey, and yours truly (see above photos)–who discussed how we used events in the world and in our own lives to inspire our writing, as well as how we folded current events into existing narratives on which we were working. My presentation focused on the real life events in my town of Southborough that inspired Mr. Clark’s Big Band, and how I worked events such as the Newtown school shooting and the Boston Marathon bombing into my book about a middle school jazz band.

Thank you to author and educator Suzanne Strempek Shea for putting these panels together and for affording us the opportunity to spend an afternoon talking about one of our favorite subjects: writing.

Image credits: Suzanne Strempek SheaSuzanne Strempek Shea via the Bay Path University MFA Program.