Karen DeBonis

Retired from a satisfying career in health promotion, Karen DeBonis (KarenDeBonis.com) writes about motherhood, people-pleasing, and personal growth, inspired by the experience of raising her son, Matthew. Growth: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor They Survived is her 2023 debut memoir about the collision of medical gaslighting and a mother’s people-pleasing, shattering her expectations of motherhood and threatening the survival of her young son. Karen’s work has appeared in The New York Times, HuffPost, Today, and numerous other mainstream and literary journals. Living in an old house in upstate New York with her husband of 40 years, Karen relishes her hard-won empty nest.