Nugent

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Patricia A. Nugent

Patricia A. Nugent writes to give voice to those who might otherwise be silenced, following a career as a school district administrator and adjunct communication professor. She’s the author of the memoirs They Live On: Saying Goodbye to Mom and Dad and Healing with Dolly Lama: Finding God in Dog. She authored the play The Stone that Started the Ripple and edited the anthology Before They Were Our Mothers: Voices of Women Born Before Rosie Started Riveting. She’s been published numerous times in professional and literary journals, as well as in anthologies. She teaches memoir, journaling, and creative writing to adult learners. Follow her blog at www.journalartspress.com.

Books

About They Live On

They Live On was never intended to be a book; it was written as a journal to help me make sense of the 18 months I spent as a caregiver for my parents at the end of their lives. Neither was it a diary chronicling all events related to their final days. I wrote when the spirit moved me, to help me seek clarity and to help me remember moments that seemed surreal, too beautiful or too terrible to forget. There were sadder times, and there were happier times than recorded here. There were additional visits from relatives and friends that significantly contributed to the experience. And there were too often times when I simply could not put pen to paper, so great the exhaustion and depression.

About Before They Were Our Mothers

Before They Were Our Mothers was conceived when Patricia A. Nugent realized, at her mother’s funeral, that she knew very little about her mother’s life before her mother was her mother. She’d never asked; her mother had never offered. Nugent deeply regretted missing the opportunity to know her mother more fully. To inspire other families to share personal histories, she compiled this anthology of real-life stories about women before they were mothers.