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Jennie NashExclusive Representation
Keynote Fee : Up to $5,000 plus expenses Fee Note Travels From: CA |
Topics
- Cancer
- Women's Health
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Programs
The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Comingand Other Lessons We Learn From Breast Cancer
A keynote presentation designed to inspire breast cancer patients, survivors and caregivers, this upbeat, hilarious and insightful talk is perfectly suited for fundraising luncheons, women's wellness or leadership retreats and survivor events.
Everyone always says that cancer changes you, and it can be tempting to expect those changes to be loud, sudden and accompanied by the call of a trumpet. In this presentation, Jennie Nash demonstrates how, more often than not, the lessons you learn from cancer creep up on you in the midst of ordinary life. They come in the guise of a postman bringing the Victoria's Secret catalog on the day you find out you need a mastectomy or in the surreal parade of survivors who offer to unbutton their shirts to show you the result of their surgery. Nash skillfully captivates her audiences with hilarious tales from the trenches of her own illness, and then charges people to embrace the lessons they've learned from cancer. It's a talk that takes audiences from laughter to tears to a sense of limitless possibility.
This presentation takes audiences from laughter to tears as they follow Jennie Nash on her journey as a cancer survivor and a writer, and shows women how living a rich, creative and authentic life - whether that involves writing, knitting, baking, traveling, or simply wearing fantastic red shoes - is a satisfaction available to us all.
After writing about her cancer experience in The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming and Other Lessons I Learned From Breast Cancer, Jennie thought she was done with the disease - in her life, and in her work. It wasn't long, however, before she was drawn to a story about a survivor who falls in love with a house because she thinks it will save her marriage and her soul.
Jennie then spent three years NOT writing that story, as she ducked around the deep issues, and hid behind the plot. After giving herself permission to throw out several hundred pages of failed words and become the novelist she always wanted to be, Jennie found the courage to write her heartfelt, raw and resonant book, The Last Beach Bungalow, and her follow-up novel, The Only True Genius in the Family, about a woman in search of the source of creative inspiration.
Jennie encourages women to find the path to their own happy ending and offers an optional "journaling" event, following her remarks to encourage others to use writing, or other form of creativity, as a path for healing.
Speaker Information
Jennie Nash is a rare breed: a writer who knows how to tell a story as powerfully on stage as she does on the page.
Ms. Nash is the author of three books of narrative non-fiction and hundreds of national magazine articles for publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Real Simple, Self, Shape, Child, Glamour, Mademoiselle, GQ, US, Home, Working Woman, New York Woman, and Readers' Digest. Her specialty, for more than 20 years, has been writing about the small moments that give life meaning. Her breast cancer diagnosis at the age of 35, which came as a direct result of a friend's fatal struggle, gave her the opportunity to look as closely at illness and death as she had been looking at life. "Everyone always says that cancer changes you," Nash says, "and almost from the moment of my diagnosis, I wanted to know exactly how. How does it change you?"
Her answer was her third book, The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming and Other Lessons I Learned From Breast Cancer (Scribner, October 2001; Plume Paperback, October 2002). Far more than a memoir of illness, Nash tells the story of how she became a wise old woman at a tender young age, and shows us how adversity can make us all wise if we only let it. On stage, Ms. Nash brings her story to life, skillfully guiding audiences through laughter, tears and the inspiration to find out what cancer can mean in their own lives. Whether speaking to the newly diagnosed, long-time survivors, or friends and family, her message resonates long after the desert plates have been cleared away.
The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming continues to find a widespread audience. In 2002, Ford Motor Company purchased 110,000 copies of to use as giveaways in their national education outreach campaign, for which Ms. Nash waived her royalties. Ford also toured her to major cities to speak and to sign books during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 2002, and hired her to write a short work of fiction, entitled My Grandma's Bandana, which was given away to survivors at Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure events in 2003 and 2004.
Ms. Nash's other work includes Raising a Reader: A Mother's Tale of Desperation and Delight (St. Martin's Press, August, 2003) and Altared States: Surviving the Engagement (Crown 1992). She has taught classes on illness and storytelling at both UCLA and WebMD.com. A graduate of Wellesley College, Ms. Nash lives with her husband and their two girls in Los Angeles, California. She is completing a novel called The Last Beach Bungalow about a survivor's search for home.
Testimonials
"She was even better than I imagined she would be. She took a most serious subject and gave it human-ness and humor. She was incredibly inspiring."
- Northwestern Hospital
"I've gotten nothing but rave reviews about how much people LOVED you and the great job Krista, Carla and I did at picking the speaker!"
- Breast Cancer Focus
"Jennie was like a breath of fresh air. We could have sat and listened to her for hours."
- National Charity League
"Jennie spoke with courage, grace and honor about her experience. She is a real inspiration to all-survivor or not."
- Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Orange County
"I have heard a lot of breast cancer/general cancer speakers, but you are now at the top of my list!"
- Magic Valley Regional Imaging Center
"She was fantastic - a huge hit.!"
- Power of Pink, Los Angeles
"We were thrilled to have Jennie as our keynote speaker. She is so heartwarming, as both a writer and a speaker. She made us laugh, cry, and inspired us all to tell our stories." -
- Susan G. Komen Foundation, Austin Affiliate