Crossing the River Sorrow: One Nurse's Story

Written by Janet Richards

Narrated by Kathleen Godwin

Crossing the River Sorrow, One Nurses Story, is a personal account of one ordinary nurse’s plunge into the world of human suffering –“ the River Sorrow” –and her long quest to make peace with some of life’s most troubling questions.

Medicine has undergone many changes over the decades since the author was a nurse. In the early 70’s the nursing practices of Florence Nightingale, met technology, and nurses, who were mostly women, had little power to protest the draconian work load that resulted.

The stories in this book go beyond documenting nursing practice in that bygone era, to examine the things that have not changed since that tumultuous time. People still get injured.  They get sick, suffer, and die and a nurse is often at their bedside. Amidst the pain that is a part of every life, humans continue to search for meaning.

Crossing the River Sorrow, One Nurse’s Story is available in paperback, Kindle and Nook format. Edited excerpts can be found in the January 2013 issue of American Journal of Nursing, and at the website crossingtheriversorrow.com. Reviews can be read on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kirkus, and in the November 2013 issue of Publishers Weekly Select.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westbow Press
• Release date: May 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781662211126

Janet Richards

Janet Richards began writing as a Town Crier for the Moscow Pullman Daily News after a career in nursing. Her first book, Crossing the River Sorrow, One Nurses Story was published in 2013 and examines her struggle with the seemingly arbitrary nature of adversity through stories from her life as a nurse, mother of a child with a chronic illness, and later as a patient. Janet currently lives in Moscow, Idaho where she is a volunteer for St. Vincent de Paul and a member of Palouse Women Artists.