Friends Honor Author

"Nashville's Sigourney Cheek has turned the worst experience of her life into the best. And now she is embarking on a year-long, cross-country party, reconnecting with old friends on a book tour that will take her to Washington, New York, Santa Barbara and London.

Sigourney, you see, is in remission. She says she has unequivocally told the "cancer god" that she is too busy to be visited again. Period.

For decades, Sigourney has been widely known as the go-to person to chair Nashville's most challenging fundraisers – from the Swan Ball to the Antiques and Garden Show. But not everyone is aware that Cheek has been writing short stories and personal essays since '80s. Shortly after she was diagnosed with chronic lymphonic leukemia in April 2005, she began sending a regular e-mail to a group of 18 close friends. That core group grew to 160, who followed her through her initial treatment, a relapse and a second bout of chemo. Now it has evolved into her just-published Patient Siggy, Hope and Healing in Cyberspace...

Sigourney recalls that her senior superlative at her Greenwich, Conn., high school was "Most Matter of Fact."

"That epithet has followed me, as I can speak and write candidly about myself," she says.

"In my writing, I was able to talk about taboo subjects -- death, spirituality, prayer-- because I was wounded and could speak from a wounded place. It touched other people's wounds and a healing has happened. My writing is about me, but it is a universal story." ...

–EMME BAXTER, The Tennessean (abridged) • 2/24/08