CHAT with Lisa Steele-Maley: Without a Map

This event is part of our CHATS with Champions speaker series and it is free and open to the public in Skidompha’s Porter Hall.

Local author Lisa Steele-Maley will discuss her book, Without a Map: A Caregiver’s Journey through the Wilderness of Heart and Mind. The book recently received both a silver and an honorable mention from Reader Views Literary Awards as well as a finalist nomination for Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award, which honors the best of indie publishing each year.

Lisa Steele-Maley grew up in small towns in New England and Wisconsin. For as long as she can remember, she has journaled to more fully understand the world around her and her place within it. She developed a strong connection to the affirming rhythms of the natural world while working in the mountains and coasts of Alaska and Washington. These experiences colored her feelings and writing.

Steele-Maley has always sought opportunities to help individuals and organizations to cultivate healthy, responsible relationships in their human and natural communities. Her book, a personal family journey, details the logistical and emotional challenges of balancing caregiving, career, and parenting while providing for a family member experiencing progressive dementia.

Published in 2018, Without a Map is a memoir and Steele-Maley’s first book. It weaves together her experience of caregiving with lessons gleaned from decades of wilderness travel, rural living, and parenting, and contributes a deeply personal perspective to the subject of dementia and aging.

Lisa is a board member at the Portland nonprofit Renewal in the Wilderness. She lives with her husband and two teenage sons in midcoast Maine.