Lauren Kessler is the award-winning author of 16 books, including her 2026 memoir, Everything Changes Everything, which has received critical acclaim and 5-star reader reviews.
Everything Changes Everything follows a five-hundred-mile pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago as Kessler confronts the double losses that upended her life.
The journey is about the wounds we suffer, hide, and learn to heal. It is about choosing hardship, the solace of kindred spirits, and the surprise of temporary friendship. It is also about ridiculous, unfounded optimism—and unexpected levity and grace. Both elegant and raw, it is a meditation on collective grief, on life, and on the steps we take when the sidewalk crumbles beneath us.
Everything Changes Everything
Love, Loss, and a Really Long Walk
1st Place, 2026 Society for Features Journalism
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1st Place, 2026 Project Reporting, Best of the West
1st Place, 2026 Society for Features Journalism 〰️ 1st Place, 2026 Project Reporting, Best of the West
Oregon Book Award
Literary Arts
Lauren is the only 3X winner of the prestigious Oregon Book Award for her narrative nonfiction works, Free, Counter Clock Wise, and Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimers.
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Works by Lauren
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Books
Be curious, inspired, and moved by these richly-detailed stories about real people. The power of fact. The resonance of fiction
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Articles
What do I write about? Well, everything. Exotic plant smuggling, Death with Dignity, Mr. Potato Head, the art and craft of nonfiction. And more.
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Blogs
Enjoy these bite-sized essays on love, life, loss, challenges, politics, prisons, and chickens.