In the months and years after the fire that disabled me, disfigured me, and almost killed me, I went through serious depression, excruciating therapy, and intense psychological counseling. I lived in pain and saw how I’d hurt everyone I cared about. I assessed and reassessed my attitudes and my life. Why did this happen to me? What did it mean? And, finally, how could I stop it from happening to anyone else? One psychologist told me I would never get over the trauma of the fire and its aftermath, but that I would find harmony with it.

This is the story of how I did that.

A portion of book sale proceeds are donated by the author to the Burn Treatment & Research Centre, University of Alberta

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Naomi K. Lewis was born in England, lived in Washington DC, and grew up in Ottawa. Her stories have been published in The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, the Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, and Grain. "The Guiding Light," a chapter of the novel that began as a story, won The Fiddlehead Fiction Prize in 2007. Lewis now lives in Edmonton. Cricket in a Fist is her first book-length work of fiction.

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