Mary Anne Willow Portrait - Author of the memoir The Grace of a Nightingale

Hello

…welcome to my website about my memoir The Grace of a Nightingale, writing, living fully and making a difference in the world.

My debut book

The Grace of a Nightingale has won a Finalist Medal at the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for Memoirs (Personal Struggle/Health Issues).

It is available to buy worldwide in Hardback, Paperback and Kindle.

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The Grace of a Nightingale Cover with Indie Book Award
My second book

The Wisdom of a Nightingale evolved from my award winning memoir The Grace of a Nightingale. This book offers some of the lessons and insights I gained from a life of vulnerability, hope and love. It is written from my soul journey in search of healing, beauty and the divine.

The Wisdom of a Nightingale
Blog updates
2024 Indie Book Award Finalist
2024 Indie Book Award Finalist

I’m delighted my debut book THE GRACE OF A NIGHTINGALE has just won a Finalist Medal from the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for Memoirs (Personal Struggle/Health Issues) @indiebookawards The Next Generation Indie Book Awards is The Largest International Book Awards for Indie Authors and Publishers.

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Soundtrack to The Grace of a Nightingale
Soundtrack to The Grace of a Nightingale

Introduction I discovered music on the radio as a young girl and immediately noticed how rhythms, melodies and lyrics stirred my inner world. I started to feel alive in ways I had not experienced before. I was hooked. Initially artists such as Bowie, T. Rex and Stevie Wonder were some of my favourites. From about

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My Memoir is Preserved in Perpetuity
My Memoir is Preserved in Perpetuity

My memoir ‘The Grace of a Nightingale’ is to be preserved in perpetuity within the five most prestigious libraries in the UK and Ireland: The Bodleian Library Oxford University, the Cambridge University Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales and Trinity College Dublin.

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Princess Diana, a Nurse and a Red Balloon
Princess Diana, a Nurse and a Red Balloon

Princess Diana, a Nurse and a Red Balloon This year would have been Princess Diana’s sixtieth birthday. I met her briefly. This is a story of the indelible memories of that day preserved by the power of the liminal space between beauty and pain. While time can erase events from our memory, this is a

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Your  Ego (who you think you are) Vs. Your True Essence (who you really are)
Your Ego (who you think you are) Vs. Your True Essence (who you really are)

Throughout my life my ‘inner essence’ has often guided my work and career choices. It enabled me to make life changing decisions based on the desire to serve others and ignore my ego which was driven by selfish individualism. In the words of Richard Rohr “the ego is that part of the self that wants

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What is your calling?
What is your calling?

What is your calling? It was the end of British summertime 1994. I had become a child of God earlier that same year – Easter. Six months later I was invited to join a close friend on a Christian women’s retreat at a secluded coastal Georgian country house. I was to receive a calling which I avoided for

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