Lisa Schamess

Lisa Schamess (née Wormser) and her husband, Gil, wrote a

for Beliefnet during the site's earliest months of existence. The focus of that initial column was their joint struggle to live fully and raise their young daughter in the face of Gil's then-recent diagnosis of metastatic liver cancer. Their essays affirmed the power and value of language, and offered a rare glimpse into the braided realities of patient and caretaker. On January 29, 2000, Gil died peacefully at home.

Lisa Schamess is a writer and mother living in Washington, D.C. Her articles have appeared online at AccentHealth.com and Planning.org, and in print in the magazines Planning and The Architectural Record. Her novel,

, was published by Southern Methodist University Press in October 2002.