Steve Gordon is a massage therapist and the founder, executive director, and primary massage therapist for a nonprofit program called The Hand to Heart Project (launched in 2007), which provides free in-home massage and compassionate touch to people with advanced cancer, including people in treatment as well as people nearing the end of life. Previous to becoming a massage therapist, he was a newspaper writer and editor, working for the
Keene Sentinel (Keene, NH) and the
Valley News (Lebanon, NH).
Irene Kacandes is the Dartmouth Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College, where she is also involved in the Medical Humanities Initiative. President of the German Studies Association, Kacandes also chairs the Division of Autobiography, Biography, and Life Writing of the Modern Language Association. She's authored two previous books and numerous scholarly articles, as well as edited anthologies, journals, and other books.