Sandra Marinella - The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss

Praise for The Story You Need to Tell

Sandra Marinella uses her own story as the inspiration for others who face insurmountable odds to rise up to their challenges, assess them, and conquer them. Thoughtfully written, deeply encouraging, and profoundly personal.

Laurie Notaro, New York Timesbestselling author of
The Idiot Girls Action-Adventure Club and Autobiography of a Fat Bride

Sandra Marinellas passion and enthusiasm for writing shine throughout this poignant and insightful book. With the skills and experience of a seasoned writing teacher, she shares with us the tools to tell the stories we need to tell and reminds us of the healing power of writing.

Michael Ferguson, postdoctoral fellow, cognitive neuroscience,
Cornell University

Both Sandra Marinellas writing and her workshops are filled with inspiration and love. Her words truly touch her audience.

Dale Yavitt, RRT, MPH, the Body, Mind, and Spirit
Program Coordinator, Piper Cancer Center, Scottsdale, Arizona

In The Story You Need to Tell, Sandra Marinella inspires the vulnerable in all of us to be the strength in each of us. She has a unique form, transforming a sentiment of safety and empowerment through writing into healing. Her own story highlights the power of the written word and provides a guide to healing through writing. Her book and her work are transformational.

Courtney Klein, cofounder and CEO of SEED SPOT

Sandra Marinellas The Story You Need to Tell is a collection of illuminating stories that shows us the power of writing to transform our lives.

Ellen Bass, poet and bestselling author of
The Courage to Heal, Beginning to Heal, Like a Beggar,
Mules of Love, The Human Line, and Free Your Mind

Marinellas practical direction and inspiring narrative invite readers to become writers. Our stories create us, she writes. And our writing can re-create us. The Story You Need to Tell is an important and beautiful book that I cannot wait to share with my students and others whose stories are aching to be told.

Judy Reeves, author of A Writers Book of Days and
Wild Women, Wild Voices

In The Story You Need to Tell, Sandra Marinella does just that recounting her own personal and professional experiences with skill, wit, and bravery. She reaches out and tells the stories of others, too, weaving a strong safety net for any of us who need a nudge toward paper and pen. This book is a testament to the authors courage, strength, and heart and a love letter to the power of words.

Amy Silverman, author of My Heart Cant Even Believe It:
A Story of Science, Love, and Down Syndrome

Using her work with cancer patients and veterans, as well as her own experience, Sandra Marinella guides you through the dark and lonely times of illness, trauma, and loss to the healing power of writing. With writing prompts designed to lead you deeper into self-reflection, she shows how you can discover your own strength through writing the story you need to tell. And most important of all she offers the empowering realization that you can choose how you tell the story and what it means.

Barbara Abercrombie, author of A Year of Writing Dangerously and
Courage & Craft

Sandra Marinella brings keen research skills, a brilliant storytelling voice, and a distinguished teaching career to this cohesive guide for writing the unspeakable. Her vivid prose twines her own powerful cancer story with dozens of other courageous voices, each writing the road from devastation to reclamation. User-friendly writing prompts and affecting case studies offer accessible portals for the safe expression of stories of woundedness and ultimate triumph.

Kathleen Adams, LPC, director of the Center for Journal Therapy,
author of Journal to the Self, and coauthor (with Deborah Ross) of
Your Brain on Ink

The Story You Need to Tell inspires, uplifts, and teaches people who need to address the power of their memories and their stories how to stand in their truth and how to find words to express what is often inexpressible. Words heal, and Sandra Marinella will help you find yours.

Linda Joy Myers, president of the National Association of Memoir
Writers and author of The Power of Memoir and Dont Call Me Mother

Sandra Marinella has empowered us to take charge of our life story and to turn challenges into meaning and purpose. Telling our stories not only helps us heal from trauma but allows us to craft a beautiful life out of the ashes.

Dr. Norma Bowe, professor at Kean University, author of
Perspectives on Community Mental Health,
and subject of The Death Class: A True Story about Life

Copyright 2017 by Sandra Marinella

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for education. It is not meant to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified medical practitioner or therapist. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given or liability taken.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Marinella, Sandra, [date] author.

Title: The story you need to tell : writing to heal from trauma, illness, or loss / Sandra Marinella, MA, MEd ; foreword by Christina Baldwin.

Description: Novato, California : New World Library, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016056886 (print) | LCCN 2017008876 (ebook) | ISBN 9781608684830 (paperback) | ISBN 9781608684847 (ebook) | ISBN 9781608684847 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Marinella, Sandra, [date]Health. | Breast cancerPatientsBiography. | Postpartum depressionPatientsBiography. | Narrative therapy. | Self-care, Health. | BISAC: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Composition & Creative Writing. | SELF-HELP / Death, Grief, Bereavement. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. | SELF-HELP / Creativity.

Classification: LCC RC280.B8 M3445 2017 (print) | LCC RC280.B8 (ebook) | DDC 362.19699/4490092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016056886

First printing, May 2017

ISBN 978-1-60868-483-0

Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-484-7

Printed in the USA on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

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I am thankful
For writers and students who inspire me.