Jess Sellers, Writer
Jess Sellers
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life."
- John Muir
Stories From Beneath the Trees
a celebration of trees, music, wonder and friendship
Stories From Beneath the Trees is a cohesive collection of essays woven from nature, societal critique, cultural history and memories of profound connection.
Blending personal narrative, poetic language and philosophical ideas, I share stories experienced and heard over the span of two decades while working as a musician in healthcare. When I asked patients, colleagues, family and friends about favorite tree memories, what emerged were transformative, poignant conversations filled with humor, wisdom and meaning.
I invite you into these pages to wander beneath the trees with me, to meet people whose lives are different from your own, and join us in our silence, merry-making and sorrows. To travel with me into illuminating moments where you might find or lose yourself, where you might discover or rediscover your capacity for wonder. To journey into places where a different kind of treasure waits and wants to be found—that of our kinship with one another, and with the natural world.
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I've recently begun the search for an agent/publisher for Stories From Beneath the Trees. In the meantime, I invite you to read some of the book's published essays available below.
Early Praise for
Stories From Beneath the Trees
"Stories from Beneath the Trees is a heartfelt, heartwarming and heart-stoppingly beautiful book you will never forget. Wisdom, insight and poetry thread their way through stories of grief and love, music and memory, all attuned to the amazements of the natural world. Grace abounds here that will touch you deeply."
—Kimberly Elkins, author of What Is Visible, Twelve Books, Grand Central Publishing
"Jess Sellers' Stories from Beneath the Trees is a profound look at how we’re shaped by memory, love, and loss. Weaving myth and childhood memories together with stories of the patients she’s served as a Certified Music Practitioner, Sellers takes us on an unforgettable journey into the human psyche and search for meaning.
With compassionate and poetic prose, Sellers not only brings Alzheimer’s patients, the elderly and dying, and others our society hides away and ignores, to life; she also reveals them as our best teachers and wisest sages. Yet her vast embrace doesn’t stop there: it expands to include all forms of life, such as birds, seeds, and – perhaps most notably – trees.
This book will leave you feeling connected, inspired, and awed by the mystery and wonder of life and death."
—Rachel Jones, author of Grief on the Front Lines: Reckoning with Trauma, Grief, and Humanity in Modern Medicine, North Atlantic Books
"What Will You Remember at the End of Your Life?"
The Galway Review, Literary Magazine
Audio Version, "Remembering What We've Forgotten"
Best of Al Jazeera English Longreads
Featuring Narrator/Actress Loveday Smith
Publications
About Jess
I worked as a musician in various
healthcare settings for twenty years,
visiting diverse patient populations
from age sixteen to one hundred in
hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospice, memory care, and rehabilitation hospitals. It was the most rewarding work of my life.
I served these populations through community arts/music programs, ensembles, choirs, bands, as a singer-songwriter, and as a therapeutic
Certified Music Practitioner.
In March 2020, I lost my job as a musician in healthcare due to Covid-19. I became a full time caregiver for my husband, who suffered devastating, lasting affects from Covid-19.
I turned to writing. As a life-long journal-keeper, writing has always been a part of who I am. I wrote my first "novel" on a Remington Streamliner manual typewriter at the age of ten.
Contact
Please feel free to email me by clicking on the envelope icon below. I love hearing from readers!
Here's some wonderful organizations I love to support. Maybe you would too?
