A tune with familiar strains...

For Katie DeBonville, life in music began in earnest when she first picked up the flute at the age of ten. Music became the catalyst through which she learned to understand herself, the common thread woven through a life anchored in family and friendship. In this debut memoir, the author reflects on the role music has played throughout her life, from listening to Top 40 tunes as a teen in the 1980s to navigating her chosen career in a field that is music-based without being performance-based. Her discoveries—about both herself and her relationships—are universal. Grace Notes is the story of a life composed, like a piece of music, by a woman approaching her fiftieth birthday, as she goes through a time of great personal change in a world that’s in flux. It’s both messy and graceful, a tune with familiar strains that is ultimately a melody all its own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie M. DeBonville’s work has been published in Stonecoast Review, Sad Girl Diaries, Quibblelit, Fauxmoir, and other publications. A flutist with three decades of arts fundraising experience, DeBonville often writes about being a single woman in Boston, music, and relationships. She has participated in readings with GrubStreet, Cambridge Common Writers, the International Women’s Writing Guild, and the Dylan Thomas Summer School in Lampeter, Wales. A Massachusetts native, DeBonville holds degrees in music from Bucknell University and New England Conservatory and earned her MFA from Lesley University’s low-residency creative writing program. When not writing, she enjoys attending concerts, browsing in independent bookstores, and sipping a good glass of wine. Grace Notes is her first book.