About this ebook
Storytelling is an important art form present in many cultures: it is a way of processing life events, of searching for meaning, and of allowing teller and listener to wrestle with the message. It is a form of teaching and learning. For the women in Bearing Witness, stories are tangible legacies for family and friends and a chance to share their thoughts on living with the “glass half full.” They inspire the reader to reflect on life’s struggles and to find within themselves a sense of optimism, perhaps when they least expect to.
Kathryn Carter’s concluding essay places these stories in the context of contemporary discourses of illness and healing.
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About the author
Kathryn Carter is acting dean at Laurier Brantford where she has taught English and contemporary studies. Her research on women’s diaries led to an edited collection, The Small Details of Life: Twenty Diaries by Women in Canada: 1830–1996 (2002), and recent articles that address the 1830 letter journal of Frances Simpson (in Australian–Canadian Studies), the 1930s diary of Myrtle Gamble Knister (in the Journal of Canadian Studies), and diaries written by schoolgirls in Canada at the end of the nineteenth century (in Canadian Children’s Literature).
Laurie Elit is an associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, McMaster University, and a gynecologic oncologist at the Juravinski Cancer Centre, Hamilton. Her research focuses on health service work in cancer care delivery and treatment decision making for women with gynecologic cancers.
