To Glenna: a note to my boss in my first book (1999)

Her copy now in the hands of a long-time reader

In 1999, I gave a copy of my first book to Glenna, my boss at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where I was an admin in HR. Glenna was generous with time off, letting me hit the road with bands as the merch guy, slinging the book from the table along with t-shirts and CDs. That same year, a gnarly one-two punch had Glenna in and out of the office as well. Cancer, that ironic dirty bastard, came for her just months after she was diagnosed with MS.

Yesterday, an early reader of my work sent me this photo. He loaned out his original copy long ago and as loans go, it wasn’t returned, so he bought a used replacement recently.

I did not stay in touch with Glenna after I left the job, but I looked her up today and found an obituary. Glenna Miller Travers died in 2020, two decades after two diseases took their first shots. The obit mentions she wrote poetry, something I don’t recall her ever mentioning to me.