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Gerda Saunders

Goodreads Author

Born

in Cape Town, South Africa

Website

http://www.gerdasaunders.com

Genre

Memoir, Nonfiction, Self Help

Member Since

March 2016

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/gerdasaunders

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GERDA SAUNDERS grew up in South Africa, where she obtained a B.S. in Math and Chemistry from the University of Pretoria. After working as a research scientist at the South African Atomic Energy Board for three years, she taught Science and Math at Kempton Park (Afrikaans) High school and Math and Physics at the Kempton Park Technical Institute. In 1984, she settled in Utah with her husband Peter and two children. While enrolled in an English PhD at the University of Utah in 1996, she taught Business- and Creative Writing. After graduation, she worked for seven years in the business world as a technical writer and program manager. In 2001, she became the Associate Director of Gender Studies at the University of Utah. In addition to her admin ...more

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What are you currently working on?

Gerda Saunders I think that I will not be able to write a book again--my focus has become worse over the past 5 years of writing; also, I am less able to keep the wh…moreI think that I will not be able to write a book again--my focus has become worse over the past 5 years of writing; also, I am less able to keep the whole arc of a narrative together than I was right after retirement. Accordingly, I am writing only my blog at the moment. I think I might still have one or two essays in me, but time will tell. Writing takes me endless time; every day I ask myself what my priority is for the day. If I have a day with little or no family interaction, I often choose writing. Given that I know that the time left in which I will still be rational is limited, I feel that my relationships with my husband Peter, my two adult children and their families, and my close friends takes top priority over writing goals.
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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Gerda Saunders I was diagnosed with early-onset dementia just before my 61st birthday in 2010. After retiring in 2011, I was not capable of resuming writing projects…moreI was diagnosed with early-onset dementia just before my 61st birthday in 2010. After retiring in 2011, I was not capable of resuming writing projects that I'd been working on for years. I took about 6 months to decompress from work. Meanwhile, I started jotting down my experience with memory loss and spatial orientation in a journal the Gender Studies faculty had given me as a retirement gift. Once I felt ready to write again after my extended unwinding, I felt that my earlier projects of two novels-in-progress was too difficult to get my head around, because I had a hard time keeping the two story structures in my head (even if working from summaries on paper.) Instead, I started using my journal notes--I dubbed them Dementia Field Notes--to write and essay. I completed more essays. And so the book grew organically to suit my needs of self-reflection in order to process the fact that I have dementia. After having an essay derived from several "chapters" published in The Georgia Review and republished in Slate, I realized that readers found my writing helpful. I knew I had to complete the book. (less)

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Gerda Saunders’s books

Average rating: 3.43 · 698 ratings · 125 reviews · 1 distinct work • Similar authors

Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia

3.43 avg rating — 699 ratings — published 2017 — 11 editions

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187 posts
Gerda Saunders's Blog: Field Notes on My Dementia

To stave off dread, the Doña tries to keep on locomoting like “The Little Engine That Could”….

Featured image: Peter AI’ed the image from a grumpy photo of me and a meme about The Little Engine That Could You’d think, past sixty or so, the unconscious would give you some respite. But here, it says, is the little engine of dread and sorrow that runs your story —Robert Hass, “John Muir, A […]

The post To stave off dread, the Doña tries to keep on locomoting like “The Little Engine That Cou

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Gerda’s Recent Updates

Gerda Saunders wrote a new blog post In this season of our Sun’s death and rebirth, may you be “wound/ With mercy round and round/ As if with air/” Gerard Manley Hopkins (1883) Featured image: About 700 prehistoric cave paintings—strung along about 1 1/2 miles of wall in the Magura Cave, Bulgaria—include an annual sun-moon c Read more of this blog post »
Jan 23, 2026 02:28PM · like

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Quotes by Gerda Saunders (?)

“I have sucked into my lungs molecules from not only the last breath of animals and people I have loved, but also from their exhalations at any of the moments I choose from their biographies: Marissa’s and Newton’s first yells after gulping air for the first time; Peter’s wholehearted “Ja” on our wedding day; my mother’s pant-pant-blows as she labored to push me into the world;”
― Gerda Saunders, Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia

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