Debra Gwartney talks about her many layered griefs: the fire that ravaged her home on the McKenzie River, the death of her beloved husband Barry Lopez, the death of her parents and more. Barry died during covid, after their home and forest were destroyed in the fire, and she couldn’t get him home, to let him die where he’d lived for 50 years, where he wrote his cannon of incredible work. She talks about how loved ones rallied and brought the McKenzie River to her husband when they couldn’t get Barry to the river.

Debra Gwartney is the author of two book-length memoirs, Live Through This, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and I Am a Stranger Here Myself, winner of the RiverTeeth Nonfiction Prize as well as the Willa Award for Nonfiction. Debra has published in such journals as Granta, The Sun, Tin House, American Scholar, The Normal School, Creative Nonfiction, the NYT Modern Love column, and others. She’s the 2018 winner of the Real Simple essay contest. Her work was recognized with Pushcart prizes in 2021 and 2022, and her essays were selected for Best American Essays in 2022 and 2023. She is recently retired from the Pacific University MFA faculty, and also taught at Portland State University, University of Oregon, and for many national and international writing conferences. Debra is a contributing editor for Poets & Writers, and is co-editor, with her late husband Barry Lopez, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She lives in Western Oregon.

You can find Debra on her author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/dgwartney

Here’s a link to a stunning essay she mentions that was published in The Sun: https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23658-siri-tells-a-joke

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Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief.

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: coffeeandgrief@gmail.com

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.