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They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So
They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice is much more than a cancer memoir. It's a meditation on living. It's a pause between polarities. Cancer is almost an afterthought. Inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life , it celebrates the tiny moments that spotlight the miracle of being alive, the messiness of being human.
Rice is a weirdly funny book about mortality. It's about family, genetics, nature vs. nurture, the Rust Belt, EPA clean-up zones, and more. Modeled on the work of stream-of-consciousness writers (Richard Brautigan, Virginia Woolf, Hunter S. Thompson), the book explores the way a mind works-complete with leaps and spirals-while reflecting on a life thoroughly lived against a dire breast cancer diagnosis.
Rice is a weirdly funny book about mortality. It's about family, genetics, nature vs. nurture, the Rust Belt, EPA clean-up zones, and more. Modeled on the work of stream-of-consciousness writers (Richard Brautigan, Virginia Woolf, Hunter S. Thompson), the book explores the way a mind works-complete with leaps and spirals-while reflecting on a life thoroughly lived against a dire breast cancer diagnosis.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
224 pages, Paperback
Published October 31, 2023
24 people want to read
About the author
Lori Jakiela
19 books113 followersLori Jakiela is the author of seven books, including the memoir Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe, which received the Saroyan Prize for International Literature from Stanford University, was a finalist for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses' Firecracker Award and the Housatonic Book Award, and was named one of 20 Not-To-Miss Nonfiction Books of 2015 by The Huffington Post.
Her most recent book, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So, is forthcoming from Atticus Books in October 2023.
Her most recent collection of poems, How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen? Poems at Mid-Life, received the 2021 Wicked Woman Prize from Baltimore's Brickhouse Books and was a September 2022 Book Club Read
Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, LA Cultural Weekly, Brevity, Chautauqua Magazine, Belt, and more. The actress Kristin Bell performed Jakiela's essay, "The Plain Unmarked Box Arrived," on The New York Times' Modern Love podcast on WBUR, and Jakiela has been featured on NPR and in PBS's "People Who Write Books Around Here," a documentary by Pittsburgh legend Rick Sebak.
Jakiela has performed her poems at Lollapalooza and was the winner of the first-ever Pittsburgh Literary Death Match.
Her work has been widely anthologized, most recently in The Best of Brevity: 20 Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction (ed. Zoe Bossiere and Dinty Moore).
A former international flight attendant, Jakiela directs the writing program at The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, teaches creative writing in the doctoral program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and leads many community workshops. For four years, she co-directed the Summer Writers Festival at Chautauqua Institution. She was a co-founder of Veterans Write, a program that offered free writing workshops to veterans and their families.
The recipient of multiple Golden Quill Awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, her column, "Let Yourself Go," appears regularly in Pittsburgh Magazine. She lives in her hometown--Trafford, Pennsylvania (the last stop in Pittsburgh's Electric Valley) --with her husband, the author Dave Newman, and their children.
Her most recent book, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So, is forthcoming from Atticus Books in October 2023.
Her most recent collection of poems, How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen? Poems at Mid-Life, received the 2021 Wicked Woman Prize from Baltimore's Brickhouse Books and was a September 2022 Book Club Read
Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, LA Cultural Weekly, Brevity, Chautauqua Magazine, Belt, and more. The actress Kristin Bell performed Jakiela's essay, "The Plain Unmarked Box Arrived," on The New York Times' Modern Love podcast on WBUR, and Jakiela has been featured on NPR and in PBS's "People Who Write Books Around Here," a documentary by Pittsburgh legend Rick Sebak.
Jakiela has performed her poems at Lollapalooza and was the winner of the first-ever Pittsburgh Literary Death Match.
Her work has been widely anthologized, most recently in The Best of Brevity: 20 Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction (ed. Zoe Bossiere and Dinty Moore).
A former international flight attendant, Jakiela directs the writing program at The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, teaches creative writing in the doctoral program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and leads many community workshops. For four years, she co-directed the Summer Writers Festival at Chautauqua Institution. She was a co-founder of Veterans Write, a program that offered free writing workshops to veterans and their families.
The recipient of multiple Golden Quill Awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, her column, "Let Yourself Go," appears regularly in Pittsburgh Magazine. She lives in her hometown--Trafford, Pennsylvania (the last stop in Pittsburgh's Electric Valley) --with her husband, the author Dave Newman, and their children.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 30, 2023
Welcome to Pittsburgh. It’s rough, it’s tough, and the people are gritty here – they endure both in life and after they’re gone. It’s a city that residents love so much; it beckons them back from wherever they may have migrated to temporarily. There’s only one rule here – be kind and spend time with those you love; you only get a limited time here and that time can end with little notice.
This book is a love letter to Pittsburgh, to family by nurture over nature, and to lives well lived with attitude. You’ll laugh as you relate the tales told to your own upbringing. The author brilliantly uses quotes from her favorite authors alongside memories of her own family antics and tells with a great dose of snark. As Hemingway says “in order to write about your life, you must first live it” and this author has lived; she’s won some and lost some along the way – yet she isn’t bitter, just reflective and offering perspective.
A great book that reminds readers to hold onto the things we love most in this life because that’s what holds us to this life. Highly recommended.
This book is a love letter to Pittsburgh, to family by nurture over nature, and to lives well lived with attitude. You’ll laugh as you relate the tales told to your own upbringing. The author brilliantly uses quotes from her favorite authors alongside memories of her own family antics and tells with a great dose of snark. As Hemingway says “in order to write about your life, you must first live it” and this author has lived; she’s won some and lost some along the way – yet she isn’t bitter, just reflective and offering perspective.
A great book that reminds readers to hold onto the things we love most in this life because that’s what holds us to this life. Highly recommended.
March 9, 2024
A beautiful and moving work by a terrific writer. Highly recommended.
October 30, 2023
When Even Rice is Done Well
A review of
Lori Jakiela’s "They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice"
by Dan J. Kirk
Every once in a while, we come across a writer who has said something in a way that no one has ever said it before, the way we wish we could write it ourselves. Lori Jakiela is one of those writers.
Page 53: “He didn’t want the hospital bed she’d ordered and all the ghosts that came with it.”
Page 98: "When faced with mortality, the questions are always why and how and when, as if figuring out the answers makes any difference."
Page 147: “ ‘Help me,’ the little girl says, and her voice pops like bubble wrap.”
These are just a few treasures, small grains of rice in the larger literary world, to be found in Jakiela’s new book, "They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice," to be released on Halloween by Atticus Books. But like the many allusions to our greatest writers that Lori shares (think Fitzgerald and Dickinson and Vonnegut), her ability to say just the right thing at just the right moment is as good as anyone writing creative nonfiction today.
The book is a sporadic walk through thought process in the manner of living a busy, cluttered life but being able to notice both the simple and the profound while taking notes along the way. Short passages soften the blow of harsh moments while longer sections set up great jokes with punchlines that might offend but probably shouldn't. It is, after all, an observation of “Life” while life itself is being threatened and fought for.
The format is not new to Jakiela, who perfected a precisely planned pattern of non-patterns in her 2015 ode to being adopted, "Belief is its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe," and that she dances through in her new 2023 reflection / observation / biography. If observational remembrance were a genre, Lori Jakiela would be its godmother. It’s a damn fine piece of writing.
Whether a genius organizer or a stalwart notetaker who converts outlines into prose, she tells a tale bravely - as if each thought has its own space. It’s like a large notebook filled with surprises to be revealed or setbacks that life forces upon us all too often.
A poignant commentary of community support for cancer victims on page 154.
A powerful admission of father-daughter legacy on page 127.
And then there is timing - just wait until you hit page 75…
All those notes that seem like post-its from a career and a life spent paying attention, are charted into a warm, truthful confession that rests between a heartbreaking memoir and a “What-the-F-does life even mean?” contemplation.
Spoiler alerts being the current rage of avoidance, it cannot be shared exactly what all comes together in one taut moment on page 123, but it highlights the raveling genius of Lori Jakiela's storytelling - when several pieces intertwine to make sense, the way you pick up toys while tidying up a child's playroom only to reflect on the precious collection and simultaneously await similar chaos the next day.
Is there perhaps a flaw in this book? Sure, but like each private life, a reader will have to decide for themselves whether those are just mishaps or life lessons.
In the final summation, there is honesty in the writing of Lori Jakiela - brutal, live-affirming honesty. She writes honestly about her husband and their love; about her parents and their tough love; about her birth mother who abandoned her because she could not love; and about her children whom she adores beyond love into the realm of worship-love that every parent ought to recognize.
At its core, upon the very simple strand of each germ of rice, is the realization that "They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice" is a book about confronting cancer, about thinking about life, and about accepting what comes next. And it is also a book that reminds us why existing through hardships is worth the joy found in living.
But don’t forget that Miss Jakiela can be damn funny, too. Just wait for page 167!
A review of
Lori Jakiela’s "They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice"
by Dan J. Kirk
Every once in a while, we come across a writer who has said something in a way that no one has ever said it before, the way we wish we could write it ourselves. Lori Jakiela is one of those writers.
Page 53: “He didn’t want the hospital bed she’d ordered and all the ghosts that came with it.”
Page 98: "When faced with mortality, the questions are always why and how and when, as if figuring out the answers makes any difference."
Page 147: “ ‘Help me,’ the little girl says, and her voice pops like bubble wrap.”
These are just a few treasures, small grains of rice in the larger literary world, to be found in Jakiela’s new book, "They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice," to be released on Halloween by Atticus Books. But like the many allusions to our greatest writers that Lori shares (think Fitzgerald and Dickinson and Vonnegut), her ability to say just the right thing at just the right moment is as good as anyone writing creative nonfiction today.
The book is a sporadic walk through thought process in the manner of living a busy, cluttered life but being able to notice both the simple and the profound while taking notes along the way. Short passages soften the blow of harsh moments while longer sections set up great jokes with punchlines that might offend but probably shouldn't. It is, after all, an observation of “Life” while life itself is being threatened and fought for.
The format is not new to Jakiela, who perfected a precisely planned pattern of non-patterns in her 2015 ode to being adopted, "Belief is its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe," and that she dances through in her new 2023 reflection / observation / biography. If observational remembrance were a genre, Lori Jakiela would be its godmother. It’s a damn fine piece of writing.
Whether a genius organizer or a stalwart notetaker who converts outlines into prose, she tells a tale bravely - as if each thought has its own space. It’s like a large notebook filled with surprises to be revealed or setbacks that life forces upon us all too often.
A poignant commentary of community support for cancer victims on page 154.
A powerful admission of father-daughter legacy on page 127.
And then there is timing - just wait until you hit page 75…
All those notes that seem like post-its from a career and a life spent paying attention, are charted into a warm, truthful confession that rests between a heartbreaking memoir and a “What-the-F-does life even mean?” contemplation.
Spoiler alerts being the current rage of avoidance, it cannot be shared exactly what all comes together in one taut moment on page 123, but it highlights the raveling genius of Lori Jakiela's storytelling - when several pieces intertwine to make sense, the way you pick up toys while tidying up a child's playroom only to reflect on the precious collection and simultaneously await similar chaos the next day.
Is there perhaps a flaw in this book? Sure, but like each private life, a reader will have to decide for themselves whether those are just mishaps or life lessons.
In the final summation, there is honesty in the writing of Lori Jakiela - brutal, live-affirming honesty. She writes honestly about her husband and their love; about her parents and their tough love; about her birth mother who abandoned her because she could not love; and about her children whom she adores beyond love into the realm of worship-love that every parent ought to recognize.
At its core, upon the very simple strand of each germ of rice, is the realization that "They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice" is a book about confronting cancer, about thinking about life, and about accepting what comes next. And it is also a book that reminds us why existing through hardships is worth the joy found in living.
But don’t forget that Miss Jakiela can be damn funny, too. Just wait for page 167!
September 27, 2023
Thanks to Readers' Favorite Review for this sweet advance review of They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So. Pub date is October 31, 2023 from Atticus Books.
*****
Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite
Five Stars
They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So is a work of non-fiction in the memoir, medicine, and inspirational subgenres. It is best suited to mature readers owing to some reference to sexual situations and the use of some explicit language.
Penned by author Lori Jakiela, the work is a unique and deeply personal exploration of life, love, and mortality. While cancer is a central theme, the book transcends the typical boundaries of a cancer memoir. Instead, it presents a mosaic of moments, memories, and musings that capture the essence of a life lived fully, from family and genetics to the Rust Belt and EPA clean-up zones, creating a tapestry of stories that reflect the messiness of being human.
Author Lori Jakiela has crafted a deeply engaging memoir in which the writing is a delightful blend of humor and introspection, even on ome truly tough topics. Her writing style toys with classic stream-of-consciousness, inviting readers to experience the meandering thoughts and emotions of a mind grappling with a breast cancer diagnosis, but she also knows when to draw us back into clarity with sharp precision.
The book's experimental form, part essays, and part memoir, challenges traditional storytelling and offers a fresh perspective on age-old questions about life, love, and the art of living. It's a celebration of the small, quirky moments
that define our existence and a reminder that even in the face of adversity, life can be beautifully chaotic.
Overall, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice is a truly unforgettable read that touches the heart and tickles the funny bone, and it’s a book that I would certainly recommend.
*****
Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite
Five Stars
They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So is a work of non-fiction in the memoir, medicine, and inspirational subgenres. It is best suited to mature readers owing to some reference to sexual situations and the use of some explicit language.
Penned by author Lori Jakiela, the work is a unique and deeply personal exploration of life, love, and mortality. While cancer is a central theme, the book transcends the typical boundaries of a cancer memoir. Instead, it presents a mosaic of moments, memories, and musings that capture the essence of a life lived fully, from family and genetics to the Rust Belt and EPA clean-up zones, creating a tapestry of stories that reflect the messiness of being human.
Author Lori Jakiela has crafted a deeply engaging memoir in which the writing is a delightful blend of humor and introspection, even on ome truly tough topics. Her writing style toys with classic stream-of-consciousness, inviting readers to experience the meandering thoughts and emotions of a mind grappling with a breast cancer diagnosis, but she also knows when to draw us back into clarity with sharp precision.
The book's experimental form, part essays, and part memoir, challenges traditional storytelling and offers a fresh perspective on age-old questions about life, love, and the art of living. It's a celebration of the small, quirky moments
that define our existence and a reminder that even in the face of adversity, life can be beautifully chaotic.
Overall, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice is a truly unforgettable read that touches the heart and tickles the funny bone, and it’s a book that I would certainly recommend.
March 16, 2024
I was interested in this book because of the subject matter, billed as "a weirdly funny book about mortality." While I liked and could identify with a lot of the book, there were parts that seemed unnecessary to me. The author even noted that some parts were repetitious. However, the book was easy to read with short entries, chapters, and sections. I read it one day and I wanted to keep reading.
"Like homing pigeons," a man in a New York bar once told me about Pittsburghers. You leave. You go back. You're lucky. There aren't many places like that." (66)
"A praying mantis is known for its patience. It can hold still and wait. And wait." (97)
". . . because being there lets me share the parts of his life I missed and wish I didn't. This is the thing about finding love late in life - there is so much that's happened without you, so much to reconstruct, so much to envy, that maybe most of all." (182)
"But when you do you, someone else has to pick up the detritus. Who mops up all the residual mess? " (193)
"Like homing pigeons," a man in a New York bar once told me about Pittsburghers. You leave. You go back. You're lucky. There aren't many places like that." (66)
"A praying mantis is known for its patience. It can hold still and wait. And wait." (97)
". . . because being there lets me share the parts of his life I missed and wish I didn't. This is the thing about finding love late in life - there is so much that's happened without you, so much to reconstruct, so much to envy, that maybe most of all." (182)
"But when you do you, someone else has to pick up the detritus. Who mops up all the residual mess? " (193)
October 7, 2023
I so enjoyed this quilted memoir. Jakiela’s writing is honest and funny, poetic and intimate. She masterfully blends her memories and thoughts into a dynamic picture of her life as a daughter, mother, caregiver and care-receiver. Reflections on parents and parenting, good nurses and bad doctors, Pittsburgh, female bodies, and the good ol’ days of the 1900s. At each scattering of rice (the beats between the short pieces that make up each chapter), I found myself pausing to laugh or gasp or curse or simply look up in awe of the beauty of what I just read. “All these accidental moments, these bits of unexpected sweetness, that make up a life.” Along with the also remarkable "Belief is its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe," go read this book!
January 24, 2024
Recommended! Jakiela writes about her son, her daughter, her husband, and her mom and dad in working-class Pittsburgh, with amazing, naked tenderness. When she writes about placing her hand over their hearts, you can feel their heartbeats too. By treasuring them in the specifics of her life, she makes us treasure our own lives, which is the miracle of excellent writing. Jakiela also writes about her parents' cancer and her own cancer, the toxic environment of a factory town, her panic and pain - rough but necessary reading. The books is made of short bits, paragraphs and stories that weave throughout, touching and parting and coming together again in a delightfully coarse, colorful pattern - "All these accidental moments, these bits of unexpected sweetness, that make up a life." Yes.
November 17, 2023
"I want a better life for my children, but this is the world we have been gifted, if gifted is the right word.
Most days I think it is.
Most days I think of this life as a gift."
This book is magical, but of course it is. Everything Jakiela writes is magic. It made me want to write. The truth, the pain, the searching, the hope in hopelessness and helplessness, the moving forward despite it all, it is magic.
Most days I think it is.
Most days I think of this life as a gift."
This book is magical, but of course it is. Everything Jakiela writes is magic. It made me want to write. The truth, the pain, the searching, the hope in hopelessness and helplessness, the moving forward despite it all, it is magic.
November 13, 2023
In this lovely prose with its deep layers of truth, you can find a piece of yourself - as a daughter, as a mother, as a partner, as a woman, as a friend. Last but never least as a cancer patient, fighter, and survivor. A wonderful gift. Beautifully written.
January 10, 2024
This book is like a long lyric essay.
May 23, 2024
Beautiful, enchanting - this will draw you in and make you laugh, possibly cry.
November 19, 2024
Eloquent and somber; sometimes sexy and always reflective. It’s damn near as real as words can get to living in one’s head. Brava.
July 9, 2025
A GRAIN OF RICE, A GOOD LIFE
Lori Jakiela is an ordinary writer in the best sense. She makes the common seem magical, the normal life affirming. She is a treasure.
Lori Jakiela is an ordinary writer in the best sense. She makes the common seem magical, the normal life affirming. She is a treasure.
January 6, 2024
A characteristically warm, funny and moving memoir from Jakiela, this one about how her mind processed a cancer diagnosis and treatment. (There's very little about medicine per se.) More stream-of-consciousness than her other prose works, but her readers will find familiar faces here, including her parents, husband and kids, as well as anecdotes from her various careers (flight attendant, college professor).
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews