The Last Day of October: Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As you maybe get dressed up for a party tonight, remember it's the last day of the month we've raised awareness for breast cancer. Hopefully, we've celebrated those who were blessed to recover and remembered those who have passed from the disease.

This was always my intent with the publication of Loose Threads thirteen years ago. I caught the characters in my life, particularly my grandmother, Margie Garber, and her walk with the disease.

I'm thankful that today a book can continue to reach the right readers through e-books and print-on-demand.

Here's to compassion and assistance for those in treatment right now, readergirlz. May books be used as comforts on their journeys, and may they renew those who love and support them.

7 Things You Might Not Know About Me: Lorie Ann Grover

Happy 7th birthday, rgz! Here are 7 Things You Might Not Know About Me:

1. I loooove rocking Doc Martins.
2. I was a fine art major, with a sculpture emphasis, at The University of Miami before I turned to publishing.
3. I love dressing retro, including wearing crinolines.
4. I once created 100 paintings for Cherry Coke's internet game, Time Tremors.
5. I usually write board books in the car.
6. Due to lupus, I love dark, rainy days.
7. I heart matcha green tea!

Oh, and here's my quote:

Enjoy the celebration this month and share your favorite, handwritten book quotes on the rgz facebook page! xox

ebook release day: Loose Threads and On Pointe!

Oh, happy news! Loose Threads and On Pointe are released today as ebooks! Many thanks to my agent Elizabeth Harding and my publishing house Simon & Schuster. I appreciate their work in this venture. May both books wing into the hands of just the right readers.

To recap Loose Threads:

In a household of four generations of women, Grandma Margie discloses that she has a lump in her breast. Told through forthright and perceptive poems in teenager Kay's own voice, Loose Threads reverberates with emotion and depth and will leave no reader untouched. (flap copy)

Booklist named Loose Threads a Top Ten First Novel for Youth and gave it a starred review:

"Like Virginia Euwer Wolff's free verse novels, Grover's book balances vivid emotional scenes with plenty of space between the words. Readers, especially those who know illness up close, will connect with Kay's secret worries and deep sadness, and will admire her strength."

The work was also a Washington State Book Award finalist, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, a Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year, and a Rhode Island Teen Book Award Nominee.

And to review On Pointe:

On Pointe soars with emotion as it explores what it means to reach for a dream -- and the way that dreams can change as quickly and suddenly as do our lives. Clare learns to dream and then dream again. 

On Pointe was a Girls Life Top Ten Summer Read.

"The teen's voice rings true. This finely written novel touches on contemporary themes such as body image leading to bulimia, overly ambitious parents, and aging grandparents who can no longer live alone." School Library Journal

The work was also a Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award Nominee and a Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year.

Thanks for celebrating with me today and helping to spread the news. With my love!

Loose Threads
On Pointe
Simon & Schuster, 2013, ebook release

Book Fight: Cancer Books Don't Suck

So, I had this book fight in my head. I just finished The Fault in Our Stars. It's beautiful 

and wonderful, and I, as always, give a standing ovation to John Green. His wit, 

philosophy, theology, and worldview are packed inside this work I will remember.

That said, my mind hung on protagonist Hazel Grace's statement that "cancer books 

suck." She goes on to explain the kind she means, and I totally get it. But wait, I thought. 

I wrote a book about cancer! It wasn't but a second later that I began to question my 

own work, and even worse, "Do I suck BECAUSE I wrote a book about cancer?" It 

doesn't take much, right? I know. Try living in my brain.

Anyway, I felt I had the right to speak back to Hazel as I sorted through my thoughts. 

Like her, I had thyroid cancer. I had thyroid removal and follow-up radioactive iodine 

treatment. I was radioactive in isolation for two weeks. I still have autoimmune diseases, 

one of which raises my chance of lymphoma 44 times more than others. Last week, 

doctors were checking for leukemia. Nope. But I am under watch regularly to verify I'm 

not lighting up the scans.

That said, I want to make the case that cancer books don't suck if they are honest. 

I loved the touchpoints between The Fault in Our Stars and my own work Loose Threads. 

There are themes, moments, and choices that echo between them because of common experience. But then there are divergent thoughts around the why and what for. 

Worldviews that split from each other; truths we wouldn't agree upon but are so

 thought-provoking and challenging, regardless.

Eventually, I did realize: Wait! Hazel loves a cancer book. The Fault in Our Stars is a

cancer book. John wrote a cancer book. He doesn't suck. Loose Threads is equally 

honest and doesn't suck either. And neither do I. Well, for the moment. In this realm.

Here's to authors speaking the truth about cancer with realism and honesty. And 

here's to those on the journey themselves. "There's hope. Look." Loose Threads

rgz Shout Out: Mother/Daughter Book Club in Georgetown, MA

Wicked Local Photo by Anne Kasper

Here's a shout out for the Mother/Daughter Book Club in Georgetown, MA! They held a bake sale to raise money for breast cancer awareness. In conjunction, the girls read my novel Loose Threads.



“I learned that you never know what people are going through at home,” said Michaela Perry.

The book dealt with some tough subject matter, though, such as the treatments and surgery that the grandmother goes through. For example, Shelby Cherwek said that one thing she learned from reading the book is that sometimes women have to have surgery to remove their breasts because of breast cancer.

The girls all agreed that it was a sad book....The book was set in the 1970s, and the girls said that they know that technology and treatment for breast cancer has improved a lot since then.

“You have a better chance of living now,” Michaela said.

Samantha agreed. “Try to keep hope,” she said."

Absolutely. "There's hope. Look." You can read the full article in the Georgetown Record here.

Hope: Lorie Ann Grover

I always sign my copies of Loose Threads with a line from the book: "There's hope. Look." It's a truth that I hold most dear. I do rest in sovereignty and believe in providence. Those beliefs maintain hope in my heart and mind no matter how dire the circumstances. I've lived through dark experiences, yet there's always light deep within. I may not see it in the moment, but my work is to keep looking for it and grasping through the shadows.

I think of my novels as whispers into the ears of readers. "There's hope. Look."

- Lorie Ann Grover



View all posts labeled with hope.

Writers lie.

Over at rgz we are chatting with Jennifer about A Northern Light. I just posted a thread to get discussion going on this quote:

"I have read so many books, and not one of them tells the truth about babies. Dickens doesn't. Oliver's mother just dies in childbirth and that's that. Bronte doesn't. Catherine Earnshaw just has her daughter and that's that. There's no blood, no sweat, no pain, no fear, no heat, no stink.

Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them."

I love this so much! And then the following passage about Minnie giving birth is incredibly real.

Certainly in 1906 writers were restrained, especially in their portrayal of women. Thankfully, we are not so inhibited today. Although there still are a few harnesses left for writing YA, and certainly many more are in place for middle grade novels.

Despite those, I have a driving aim to tell the raw truth. Truly, that was my goal for Loose Threads.



But even when we bust through barriers with publishers, we can still be held back. I was asked at a school visit for Loose Threads not to mention the word "breast" when discussing breast cancer with the fifth graders. I'm-not-kidding.

May we female writers push to tell our stories. Without one lie. To everyone who will listen.