PK, Cancer and the Tragic Ruts of Time

This memoir is a Jewish and Japanese American queer love story of forty-five years. It is about survival via love, cancer, and adversity--how two lesbians grew up in a politically charged era and grew older together in a defining, radical, post-pandemic world.

You will find heartful stories about PK extraordinaire, my breast cancer notes, poetics about life and death, a few poems and photographs--all of which are intertwined with my black-ink illustrations. This book is meant to inspire and give hope to other LGBTQ+ people living in a challenging world and everyone who has been touched by cancer.

Geri Gale (she/her) is a multi-hyphenate artist (memoirist, novelist, essayist, poet, illustrator, and narratress). She writes in the day and draws at night. She received the following awards for her memoir: 2025 Red Hen Press Quill Prose Award, finalist, and 2025 Wandering Aengus Book Award in Nonfiction, finalist. Poetry awards include Steel Toe Books Poetry, finalist; Jack McCarthy Poetry Book, finalist; Sally Albiso Poetry Book, honorable mention; and The Word Works Washington Prize, semi-finalist. Her award-winning books include In the Closet: A Triad (American Fiction Award, LGBTQ+ Fiction Finalist; IAN Book of the Year, LGBTQ+ Fiction Finalist; A Notable 100 Book in the Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book; Foreword Indies Book Award, LGBTQ+ Fiction Finalist); Patrice: a poemella (Silver IPPY: LGBTQ+ Fiction, Independent Publisher Book); Alex: The Double-Rescue Dog (National Indie Excellence, Picture Book, Finalist); and Waiting: prosepoems (Dancing Girl Press). Her drawings. prose, and poetry have appeared in several magazines. She is a 2023 Jack Straw Writer Fellow and a Moth StorySLAM winner who performed in the Moth Seattle Grand Slam.