MEMOIRS OF A MASK MAKER

How does a 5-year-old girl navigate deep loss after a tragic car accident leaves her motherless? Charting a lifelong process of sifting through grief and rediscovering hope, Memoirs of a Mask Maker honors the women who stepped in to help the girl stitch together a beautiful life-a grandmother, a neighbor and a pharmacist in Japan...Years later, when the global pandemic forced Kathryn Graven and everyone else inside, she responded by sewing hundreds of colorful masks for family, friends and complete strangers. She signed each one with a note of encouragement. She discovered that making masks not only called for artistic skills, it tapped all she learned about filling a void and building resilience.Now, as global society faces immeasurable individual and collective grief, these lessons are collected for a new crop of motherless children and those around them. Memoirs of a Mask Maker invites readers to join a new conversation about how we gather our tears and mend the tears.Memoirs of a Mask Maker is one of the most captivating memoirs you'll ever read. From beginning to end, this is a flat-out beautifully written book with characters that pop off the page and scenes that are somehow sweet, funny and haunting all at once. Kathryn Graven has a journalist's eye for just the right detail, description and dialogue. She's able to capture growing up in the Midwest, coming of age in Japan and struggling to make sense of it afterward. You'll read passages aloud to others in the room. It's that good. Sam Roe, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalistMemoirs of a Mask Maker is a powerful, moving testament to meeting monumental loss with passion, determination and outsized creativity. In this tour de force memoir, Kathryn Graven delivers a paean to the ability of artistic endeavor to transform grief into beauty. Again and again, she shows how choosing love over despair can transcend cultural differences and ancient wounds, creating healing connections, a matrix within which to build a triumphant, generous life. Susan Deborah King, poet, author of Coven, One-Breasted Woman, Bog Orchids and Moon DanceHow can we travel from overwhelming grief to the first stirrings of a life plan that will work-and then to the long-sought reassurance of being loved, and being able to love again? I've never read a book that's so honest, so revealing, and so inspiring. Share this book with everyone in your life who's survived hard times-or is hoping to get to a better place. Kathryn Graven isn't just a mask maker; she's a teacher, a friend and a healer. George Anders, Pulitzer Prize honoree, author of You Can Do Anything¿¿Kathryn Graven is a writer, mixed-media artist, musician and a lifelong sewer.Fluent in Japanese, she began her journalism career in Tokyo and became a Tokyo correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Kathryn is a graduate of Stanford and Columbia Universities and was a fellow at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University.Kathryn studied mixed-media painting and abstract art at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She shows her artwork in open studios and participates in solo and group art events.Originally from Minnesota, Kathryn lives with her husband in Boston, and is mother to their two grown sons. During the summer, she lives on Great Cranberry Island, Maine. Passionate about sharing and preserving the bounty of her Maine garden, she makes delicious jams and irresistible pickles.Please visit the author's website at kathryngraven.com