When poet and memoirist Kathryn Rhett nearly lost her newborn daughter to a serious illness, she managed to find comfort in the stories of others who had suffered loss and crisis, and in the assurance these accounts gave her that she was not alone. Whether or not their struggles were similar to her own, Rhett discovered that the experience of crisis is universal, and the process of enduring and recording life-changing trauma leaves behind a chronicle of strength.

Hopeful and deeply moving, Survival Stories celebrates the memoir as an art form, as well as the human instinct to survive and adapt to adversity. Throughout, twenty-two extraordinary writers, including Jamaica Kincaid, Rick Moody, Lucy Grealy, William Stryon, and Isabel Allende, reveal, as Kathryn Rhett writes in her introduction, that "our life-writing is a passage through grief to knowledge".

"The pieces are united by bracing candor and beautifully distilled prose. Whether about a one-night stand that ends a marriage or withstanding deadly illness, these thoughtful memoirs invoke, ultimately, the powers of catharsis". -- Entertainment Weekly

"Ideal for readers itchy to read beyond the Best American Essays collections and sustaining to those in hard straits themselves". -- Kirkus Reviews

"There are some affecting, beautifully written pieces in Survival Stories..". -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times