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 life of tending grief and reclaiming joy, Memoirs of a Mask Maker honors the women who helped the girl stitch together a beautiful life-a grandmother, a neighbor and a pharmacist in Japan...

Years later, when the global pandemic raged, Kathryn Graven responded by sewing hundreds of colorful masks, signing each with a note of encouragement. Making masks tapped all she had learned about filling a void and building resilience. In the pandemic's wake, our torn society faces immense loss and grief. Memoirs of a Mask Maker invites readers to a new conversation about how we gather our tears and mend the tears.

Kathryn Graven is a writer, mixed media artist and sewer. A former Tokyo Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, she now lives in Boston, USA. Memoirs of a Mask Maker is her first book. For more information and family photos, visit www.kathryngraven.com

Memoirs 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 Dance