This personal account of an abusive marital relationship and the healing, transforming journeying out of it is beautifully written and deeply moving. It is all at once heart-wrenching, inspiring, and empowering, and it offers a message of courage, hope, faith, and love. Michele Weldon effectively puts to rest the many fallacies surrounding domestic violence in our culture, and her story illustrates the fact that willingness/ability to respond to domestic violence and abuse continues to be a major challenge for the church in 2000. I CLOSED MY EYES is an invaluable resource for a variety of contexts today, e.g., in seminary pastoral care & counseling courses, clinical social work degree programs. It should be on the bookshelves of our churches and synagogues, domestic abuse shelters, and public libraries. It would be an enormously good read for medical students and interns in our teaching hospitals across the country who, sadly, get little education and training regarding the complex family and societal issues surrounding domestic violence and abuse. All who minister to or care for people caught in the cycle of domestic violence and abuse will learn from this book.

Michele Weldon does an amazing job of grabbing the reader with her story. It takes an incredible amount of courage to tell the world that your picture perfect life and marriage was a charade -- that you were abused for years by a man who appeared to be "the loving husband." What really touched me most was the ability I felt to relate to the author, as the life she describes is not too far from my own real-life experience.

Warning for those of you are presently in an abusive relationship or recently leaving one -- this is so well-written and hits so close to home that it may trigger flashbacks. Nevertheless, it is a must-read for not just victims of domestic violence, but for all women.

Thank you Michele Weldon for writing your journey through living and leaving an abusive husband. ---

Her writing is encouraging and honest. The writing style kept me reading. The way she put into words the joy of leaving the cycle of abuse despite the hardship that it may bring is just great!

It's true.
Last year I took one of Ms. Weldon's "Writing To Save Your Life" workshops. Her workshop appeared in my life at a time when I knew I needed to give voice to my life experiences, but I didn't know how or where to start. And I was scared. As a writer of romance novels, I've always invented stories and been in control of a paper world. I knew it was time to write something for me, about me, but I was paralyzed with fear.

With Ms.Weldon's guidance, something broke inside of me and I started writing and writing, and during the journey I met someone I thought I had lost -- me.

Michele Weldon's workshop was a gift. I'm thrilled that her workshop is in book form to guide people everywhere! Her wit, honesty, and down-to-earth sensibilities come shining through in every chapter.

Ms. Weldon showed me that exploring and giving voice to my story, my emotional truths, was an act of power and courage. She is the guide-friend you've been waiting for.

Michele Weldon makes you want to write. With funny anecdotes, touching personal stories, and practical advice, the author jump starts stalled writers. The message she communicates is one everyone should hear: Your own life is worth preserving in words. I did my fair share of life-saving writing when my children were small and now regale them, as teenagers, with readings about our lives in those days. Michele Weldon's book is a delightful reminder to me that it's time to get back to preserving memories on paper.

I've read Michele Weldon's previous work, and I've heard her speak, so I ordered this book as soon as I heard about it, long before the actual publication date. When it came, I wasn't disappointed. Here's a book that speaks honestly about writing and what it can mean in our lives.

This book works on so many levels. Even the title is layered. When I first read that phrase, "Writing to Save Your Life," I thought it referred to Ms. Weldon's own heroic struggle to survive her abusive marriage. But as I read through the book, I realized that we all can write to save -- to preserve -- our lives. When I write in a journal, I'm creating a private historical document. I'm saving my life as I experienced it, even if no one ever reads it but me.

Ms. Weldon performs an incredible feat by making the act of writing seem so, well, do-able. She makes writing sound as natural as breathing -- and I suspect, for her at least, it is. Her own writing style is so clean and unfussy and fun, you can almost imagine her just talking her essays into a tape recorder as she drives her kids from soccer to piano lessons. But then, as you read and reread a piece like "A Cushioned Life," you start to see the quiet depths of meaning that she deftly weaves into her stories.

As a would-be novelist myself, I was inspired by Ms. Weldon's advice on the writing process. I've read a lot of other books on writing, and sometimes the advice seems rather condescending: "Here, little woman. Although you'll never be as gifted or witty or perceptive as I am, I will give you this opportunity to plunk down your (money) so that you can be awed by my astonishing cleverness." But when Ms. Weldon writes about writing, she makes it seem like a true craft -- a skill you can learn and improve and enjoy, especially when you're working under the patient and encouraging supervision of a master craftswoman.

Read this book if you want to write -- or if you just want to read. I found my own life captured in these pages, and I believe you will, too.