How to Grieve: a cancer journal, by Laura F. McGinnis

Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

At the age of 88, Mom was diagnosed with colon cancer. Together Mom and daughter Laura stumbled through doctors, rollercoasters, insurance, decisions, and the interminable waiting that the diagnosis created. The "journal poems'' that comprise the center of the book were written while coping with the day-to-day realities and uncertainties of the first weeks we went through.

Also included are poems dealing with the grief of losing Mom only nine months after the doctor told us "there's a mass…"

1.9 million people will hear those feared words this year. This book hopes that some of them, especially family and caregivers, will feel they are not alone in their cancer journey and in the grief that follows their loss.

Laura McGinnis is a retired project manager from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a member of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh and at Carnegie Mellon University and Madwomen in the Attic at Carlow University. With Pitt Osher, she is the founder of the Writers' Special Interest Group and a founding member of the Poets' Forum. She has been published by Clarendon House, Poetry Quarterly, Sweety Cat Press, and Indie Blu(e).