The Red Ribbon: A Memoir of Lightning and Rebuilding After Loss

(Paperback)

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Description

Complicated grief (a persistent, intense feeling of yearning or sadness for a person who died, to the extent that it interferes with relationships or the ability to enjoy life or work) affects around 7% of people who have lost a loved one, or more than 10 million people in the US alone.

An estimated 146,500 deaths in 2017 were due to accidental injury.

70% of adults in the US (approximately 223.4 million people) have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their lives; up to 20% of these people go on to develop PTSD.

An estimated 24.4 million Americans suffer from PTSD at any given time.

Art heals. More than 40 percent of health care facilities have arts programs.

AUDIENCE:

Book discussion groups

Memoir readers

Women of all ages

Readers who have lost a loved one

Readers who have lost a spouse

Readers who have lost a parent

Mothers of sons

Psychologists and social workers

Bereavement counselors.

Reviews

2019 Kirkus Reviews' Best Indie Book AwardsBest Indie Biographies & Memoirs
2019 Foreword Indies Honorable Mention in Adult Non-Fiction: Grief/Grieving
2020 Eric Hoffer First Horizon Award Finalist
2020 Eric Hoffer Award Honorable Mention in Memoir

Memoirs of loss and survival are rather common, but what sets this one apart is Bills extraordinary perceptiveness and writing talent. . . . A keeper of a book by a talented author.
Kirkus Reviews, starred review

A must-read for anyone dealing with loss.
Hollis Gillespie, best-selling author and award-winning syndicated humor columnist

I highly recommend this book; it is both heartbreaking and uplifting . . . a real tour de force!
Christine Linnehan, MS, LCPC, FT, psychotherapist at Riverview Counseling and consultant for Center for Grieving Children

Achingly beautiful.
Barbara Hesselman Kautz, MSN, RN, author of When I Die Im Going to Heaven Cause I Spent My Time in Hell: A Memoir of My Year as an Army Nurse in Vietnam

Nancys voice in The Red Ribbon is direct and beautifully sustained right through to the end, and her language, both fresh and arresting, documents the fragility such a blow inflicts; her work is infused with pain and grace moving into emotional country most fear to explore. She shares generously the truth of her experience, and the reader is stunned, brought to tears, and needs to be reminded to breathe. Her memoir is an amazing accomplishment offering help and hope to others suffering losses. Nancys memoir reveals a brave effort to stay focused and steady when facing an ultimate horror. The Red Ribbon is the product of a years-long struggle for meaning, the gradual construction of her myth, and a clear vision of an experience fully understood in the broader human context. It is a triple whammy.
Walden S. Morton, editor of KALEIDOSCOPE and a finalist for the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance 2017 Maine Literary Award for Anthology

Author Bio

Nancy Bills is currently on the faculty of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Southern Maine, OLLI/USM, where she facilitates the fiction writing workshop. She is also a retired clinical social worker; during her twenty-year-long career, she served both as a psychiatric social worker at Concord Regional Hospital in New Hampshire and Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine, and as a psychotherapist at Green House Group, a group private practice in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Myth, Chapter 19 of The Red Ribbon, received first place in the memoir/personal essay category of the 83rd Annual Writers Digest Writing Competition. Her memoir, fiction, and poetry have been published in Reflections, The Maine Review, The LLI Review, The Goose River Anthology, and in The 83rd Annual Writers Digest Writing Competition Collection. A member of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance (MWPA), she lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, with her two Maine Coon cats.