Mary Jane Nealon

When she was nineteen years old, Mary Jane Nealon made a mistake that would haunt her for two decades: she moved away from her family when her beloved brother was dying of cancer.

In Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse's Life, Nealon tells how her Irish Catholic religion had taught her that suffering was the only way to redemption. And so she took nursing jobs with cancer and AIDS patients, sometimes losing people she cared about at the rate of two or three a week, learning to carry huge loads of grief and pain.

But she also took poetry workshops. "It's probably accurate to say that poetry saved my life," Nealon said during a recent conversation with Chérie Newman, producer of The Write Question.

Hear that interview Thursday evening at 6:30 (YPRadio.org) or 7:30 (MTPR.org). Or listen online.

Click here to see more information about Mary Jane Nealon, read reviews of Beautiful Unbroken, and find a link to subscribe to The Write Question podcast.