Everything Changes Everything - by Lauren Kessler (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A resonant and timely story about love, loss, and forging a path forward in the aftermath of grief.

After tragedy upended the contours of her life, Lauren Kessler, an unflinching immersion journalist, felt compelled to move--to do something, to be somewhere else. So she set out alone on the famed Camino de Santiago, walking across Spain to create space between the life she'd lived and the life she hadn't chosen but now inhabited.

Raw and luminous, Everything Changes Everything is a story about facing what we'd rather avoid, about the wounds we carry, hide, and--sometimes--heal. It's about the privilege of choosing hardship, the grace of temporary friendship, the solace of kindred spirits, and the power of movement to unstick what's stuck. It's also about unfounded optimism, unlikely laughter, and the way grief and beauty can coexist in a single step.

Review Quotes

"Everything Changes Everything is a gift to anyone who has ever woken up in a life they don't recognize anymore. It's about finding the momentum to keep moving one step, and then the next. Thank you, Lauren Kessler, for finding the words."----Janine Urbaniak Reid, author of The Opposite of Certainty

"In Kessler's journey on the Camino she learns that sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself, especially when you're facing an unexpected and uncertain future. It is a beautiful book about love, loss, the weight that grief can impose on you and most importantly, how to unburden yourself."----Marisa Renee Lee, award winning and bestselling author of Grief is Love: Living with Loss

"Lauren Kessler has transformed unimaginable tragedy into something profound and exquisitely rendered-a story about enduring love, told with heartbreak and humanity in equal measure. To be immersed in Everything Changes Everything is extraordinary." ----Becky Ellis, author of Little Avalanches

"Lovely, aching, and heartbreakingly real, Everything Changes Everything traces the story of a life broken--and then revealed--by addiction and loss. Lauren Kessler takes us on her own private journey, and in the process, teaches us about our own."----Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder

About the Author

Lauren Kessler is an award-winning author and (semi) fearless immersion reporter who combines lively narrative with deep research. She is the author of 11 works of narrative nonfiction, 3 biographies, an oral history, and 4 books on writing and reporting. She teaches Storytelling for Social Change at the University of Washington and runs writing workshops for Forum for Journalism and Media in Vienna, and for newbie and veteran writers closer to home. A graduate of Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, she holds a Ph.D. in Communications from the University of Washington. She lives in Oregon.