Splinter of the Tree

What began as a memoir of a friend's journey through a thirty-month battle with brain cancer became the blueprint of the author's personal transformation. As the author wrote in the book's prologue, "How do I capture the reality of (my friend's) impending death yet celebrate the life that bloomed in the quickly changing terrain of her terminal illness? I value the splinter wedged in my heart that compelled me to go places I would not willingly choose. It is part of the artistic beauty dwelling in each of us, and sometimes this art emerges through intense pressure and heat, not unlike what wood undergoes in the hands of a master carver."