From Alan Lightman, author of Einstein's Dreams
"From Scientist to Stroke Survivor is an extraordinary testament to the human spirit, a powerful account of life after a stroke and the redefinition of body and mind. And, even in the face of unimaginable disability, there is hope and some kind of spiritual redemption."
Excerpt:
Reparations I’ll Pay Piecemeal Until Death
I write to complete
discourse between lines.
I owe them that—
for stepping up
when life stood me up
….
for being abiding open lines that
never end even when
syntax says they do.
My Books
From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted
From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted
From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted
For Elly, the writing process moves like a ballerina, gliding so
effortlessly that the artistry vanishes. Here’s the thing about Elly: her writing is unforgettable. Out of a
toolbox of prosaic words that we all have access to; she weaves a tapestry of gold.
Anyone who has experienced pain,
loss – suffering that seems pointless – will benefit from this book. Pain, in this life, can be arbitrary and
instantaneous. It can come from anywhere at any time. As Elly describes it, “Just as quickly as we enter
the womb of the world, we can be pushed out, evaporated out of our current mentality and woken to
hollow shells of ourselves.”-Travis Christofferson
Instructions for Selling-Off Grief
From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted
From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted
As someone who has suffered a brainstem stroke and who liveswith a rare connective tissue disorder (EDS), Elly Katz has found poetry an abiding solace that beckons her to write. These are moving poems “filled with the losses my lithe legs, / wandering in abroad exhibit halls, / never walked into finding.”
—Arthur Sze
About Elly Katz
At 27, verging towards a doctorate at Harvard, Elly Katz went for a mundane procedure to stabilize her neck. Somehow, she survived what doctors surmised was unsurvivable: a brainstem stroke secondary to a physician’s needle misplacement. In the wake of the tragedy, she discovered the power of dictation and the bounty of metaphor. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the Stardust Review, the Sacramento Literary Review, the Amsterdam Review, and many others. Her first collection of creative nonfiction, From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted is forthcoming from Lived Places Publishing in Disability Studies (2025). Her first collection of poetry, Instructions for Selling-Off Grief, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books (2025).