Deborah Samuel is the author of the new memoir Grace Through Fire: A Memoir of Murder, Tragedy, and Resilience. Also an educator and a real estate professional, she lives in Santa Barbara, California.
Q: Why did you decide to write Grace Through Fire?
A: There was a night when I found myself on the floor, contemplating taking my own life simply to make the pain stop. In that moment, I received a very clear message from God: Get up. You have work to do. I had no idea what that work was. I only knew that I needed to listen.
I began journaling because I needed somewhere to put the pain. My life had become so chaotic and unbelievable that writing things down helped me acknowledge what was actually happening instead of pretending I was fine.
Putting the truth on paper allowed me to get it out of my “squirrel brain,” as I call it, and begin making sense of it. I started an online blog called Postcards from the Edge.
Eventually, I also had to confront my tendency to try to save everyone around me. I learned that healing had to begin with forgiving myself and accepting that the only person I could truly change was me.
It did not happen overnight. I peeled back the layers of trauma one at a time. Grace Through Fire grew out of that process.
Q: Virginia Lloyd described the book as “[d]eeply moving and unflinching—a powerful testament to courage, resilience, and the ability to rise from trauma.” What do you think of that description?
A: “Unflinching” resonates deeply with me because I made a conscious decision not to sanitize my story.
There are uncomfortable chapters in Grace Through Fire. I write openly about violence, loss, addiction, family trauma, and some extraordinarily painful periods in my life. But I did not want to write a memoir that looked away when things became difficult.
At some point, I realized I could not fix everyone else. I could only begin fixing myself. That required making some big, bold decisions without worrying about what other people thought.
One of those decisions was giving up alcohol. I lost friendships when I stopped drinking, but sobriety became a line in the sand. I needed to face my pain honestly, without using wine to soften the edges.
For me, resilience is not pretending something terrible did not happen. It is acknowledging what happened and deciding that it does not get to determine the rest of your life.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title Grace Through Fire came to me in a dream. I woke up and simply knew: That is the title. Looking back, I understand why. I spent years believing grace was something that arrived after the fire—after the crisis, grief, anger, and trauma were over.
What I eventually discovered was that grace can exist inside the fire.
The most painful experiences of my life forced me to discover who I was, what I believed, what I was willing to change, and ultimately how I wanted to live. The fire did not disappear, but I learned how to walk through it differently.
Q: What impact did writing the book have on you, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: Writing this book has been an extraordinary period of growth for me. One of the biggest surprises has been discovering how widely the story resonates across generations.
I have been particularly moved by readers in their 70s and beyond who received advance copies and began sharing their own stories with me—family secrets, violence, loss, shame, and experiences that their generation was often taught to simply sweep under the rug and never discuss again.
I began to realize that for some readers, the book was almost like a long-lost friend saying, “I see you, too.”
Yes, those things happened. They mattered. But they do not have to define who you become.
That is what I hope readers take from Grace Through Fire. We cannot rewrite what happened to us, but we can decide what we do with it. And it is never too late to begin a new chapter.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I already have ideas for two more books. There is so much I want to explore about starting over at 50 and the remarkable experiences that came afterward—many of which simply could not fit into Grace Through Fire. Apparently, I still have a few layers of the onion left to peel!
I am also developing my work as a speaker, with plans to pursue a TEDx opportunity in 2027 and speak to organizations, young people, podcasts, and audiences interested in resilience, reinvention, and what it means to begin again.
This fall, I will take Grace Through Fire on tour through Arkansas and Southern California, followed by events in Australia in December. I am especially excited that the book is available through print-on-demand distribution in Australia, allowing the story to begin reaching readers well beyond the United States. I also have an audiobook being released that I narrated myself.
For a book that began as private words in a journal, watching it spread its wings into the world is extraordinary.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I wrote this book because, eventually, I understood that I had to.
The years between 40 and 45 were such a blur of tragedy and upheaval that there were moments when even I could not comprehend how quickly my life had spun out of control. From the outside, I could appear completely functional. Inside, I was fighting to survive.
That is one reason I believe so strongly in telling the truth about what happens behind closed doors. We rarely know the full story of what another person is carrying.
Today, I am far more interested in what comes next than in remaining trapped by what came before. The publication of Grace Through Fire feels less like the end of my story and much more like the beginning of another chapter.
There are also some exciting conversations underway about where this story might go next. I cannot share the details yet—but I can say that I am incredibly excited about what may be ahead. Stay tuned.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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