After three years on a drug called Humira, prescribed for a crippling autoimmune condition, Ellis Avery was diagnosed in 2012 with leiomyosarcoma, a rare uterine cancer, and given a 26% chance of five-year survival. When Avery learned that there was no evidence to show that the radiation and chemo she was offered would save her life, she turned down treatment. But even brave decisions can be terrifying: suddenly, Avery had to learn how to cope with constant fear - that she had made the wrong choice, that her doctors would call with bad news, that her time was limited. ON FEAR, the second essay in a series on Kindle Singles, tells the story of how Avery learned to live one moment at a time, from meditating to singing in the shower to befriending a black cat named Fumiko. While most readers will never face leiomyosarcoma, all of us sometimes face fear: Avery's essay offers hard-won wisdom, tools, and hope. ON FEAR is the second in a series of essays on grief, illness, and food entitled THE FAMILY TOOTH.
Ellis Avery writes from the depths of loss and fear with emotional precision and visceral sensuality. But foremost it's her ability to attain a graceful, benevolent perspective on it all that makes these essays soar.
--Alison Bechdel
Ellis Avery uses her novelist's powers to tell the true story of her life in crisis. She faces her mother's death and her own near-death with an artist's intelligence and imagination--and humor. Reading these essays brings tears of grief and laughter.
--Maxine Hong Kingston
Ellis Avery captures the stillness and the drama of everyday life with elegance and poetry, never shying away from the struggles that make us human.
--Michelle Tea
About the Author: The only writer ever to have received the American Library Association Stonewall Award for Fiction twice, Ellis Avery is the author of two novels, a memoir, and a book of poetry. Her novels, THE LAST NUDE (Riverhead 2012) and THE TEAHOUSE FIRE (Riverhead 2006) have also received Lambda, Ohioana, and Golden Crown awards, and her work has been translated into six languages. Avery edits an urban observations column for Public Books, works one-on-one with writers as a manuscript consultant, and teaches fiction writing at Columbia University. www.ellisavery.com
Cover design by Kerry Ellis.
Genre: Inspirational
Ellis Avery writes from the depths of loss and fear with emotional precision and visceral sensuality. But foremost it's her ability to attain a graceful, benevolent perspective on it all that makes these essays soar.
--Alison Bechdel
Ellis Avery uses her novelist's powers to tell the true story of her life in crisis. She faces her mother's death and her own near-death with an artist's intelligence and imagination--and humor. Reading these essays brings tears of grief and laughter.
--Maxine Hong Kingston
Ellis Avery captures the stillness and the drama of everyday life with elegance and poetry, never shying away from the struggles that make us human.
--Michelle Tea
About the Author: The only writer ever to have received the American Library Association Stonewall Award for Fiction twice, Ellis Avery is the author of two novels, a memoir, and a book of poetry. Her novels, THE LAST NUDE (Riverhead 2012) and THE TEAHOUSE FIRE (Riverhead 2006) have also received Lambda, Ohioana, and Golden Crown awards, and her work has been translated into six languages. Avery edits an urban observations column for Public Books, works one-on-one with writers as a manuscript consultant, and teaches fiction writing at Columbia University. www.ellisavery.com
Cover design by Kerry Ellis.
Genre: Inspirational
Used availability for Ellis Avery's On Fear