Mary-Frances O’Connor—The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing

Advance copy: Backstories on books by NASW members

Cover of the book The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing by Mary-Frances O’Connor showing the title in white, subtitle in black, and author’s name in gold, superimposed over a collage figure of an adult body assembled from many different colored shapes on a turquoise background.

THE GRIEVING BODY:
HOW THE STRESS OF LOSS
CAN BE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HEALING
Mary-Frances O'Connor
HarperOne, February 11, 2025
Hardcover, $30, eBook, $14.99
Hardcover ISBN: 9780063338906
eBook ISBN: 9780063338920

O'Connor reports:

Writing about one’s personal experience is a challenge for a scientist. The Grieving Body is about how we respond physically during grieving. In addition to discussing my research, I also reveal my own grief after the loss of my parents and my diagnosis with multiple sclerosis.

My clinical psychology training helped me ground my choices. Self-disclosure during therapy should be used only if it forwards specific goals. Is it being used to create rapport or to illustrate an important point? Any personal revelation must meet these criteria and, one hopes, that keeps it from feeling self-indulgent.

The science communication principle I am exploring is, "How would a person live differently if they knew the facts that I know?" Illustration through narrative is often the best way to convey the connection between empirical evidence and lived experience.

Because The Grieving Body is my second book, I was more knowledgeable about the writing process. The first time around, I bought the book The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry and followed each step almost to the letter. That advice included getting an agent. I attribute a lot of my success in finding a publisher to my marvelous agent, Laurie Abkemeier at DeFiore and Company. To a career scientist, the idea of having a literary agent sounded crazy, but having an agent multiplied my efforts exponentially.

I had an extensive outline before I started the second book, which helped me figure out if I was getting off track as the book emerged. I did a much better job of keeping track of my citations the second time around, which helped enormously at the end. I simply made a comment in the text with the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, so that I could go back later to grab the full citation.

Contact Info:

Mary-Frances O'Connor, mfoconnor@arizona.edu, https://maryfrancesoconnor.org/
Book: The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing, https://maryfrancesoconnor.org/books/the-grieving-body
Publicist: Louise Braverman; 516-647-6034; louise.braverman@harpercollins.com
Agent: Laurie Abkemeier, 212-925-7044, Laurie@defliterary.com

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Banner image adapted from original photo by Mary-Frances O'Connor.

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Advance Copy

The path from idea to book may take myriad routes. The Advance Copy column, started in 2000 by NASW volunteer book editor Lynne Lamberg, features NASW authors telling the stories behind their books. Authors are asked to report how they got their idea, honed it into a proposal, found an agent and a publisher, funded and conducted their research, and organized their writing process. They also are asked to share what they wish they’d known when they started or would do differently next time, and what advice they can offer aspiring authors. Lamberg edits the authors’ answers to produce the Advance Copy reports.

NASW members: Will your book be published soon? Visit www.nasw.org/advance-copy-submission-guidelines for information on submitting your report.

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