Deborah Lang Hampton is a writer and poet whose first book, Slapped Awake, is a potent memoir of her life contending with cancer as a chronic disease. The work is a personal and candid look at the challenges of the ebb and flow of remission and recurrence, the wrenching uncertainties and unexpected blessings that emerge from facing her illness, and building a life with meaning and purpose born out of the experience. Debbi has worked as an editor of a national children's magazine, a medical and science writer and editor, and writer of fiction and non-fiction for children and youth. Her work has appeared in CURE magazine, The Piedmont Literary Review, World Order magazine, Brilliant Star, and Child's Way. She is currently working on a collection of essays with a working title of With Death on My Shoulder. Debbi's career has also included work as a philanthropy professional in the non-profit sector, musician and vocalist, and registered nurse. Raised in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area, Debbi is a self-described baby-boomer, who found her voice and claimed herself in her middle years. Having moved to Tennessee in the late 1970's, she takes Chattanooga as her hometown with all the zeal of a convert, saying, "These mountains and the river are deep in my blood now, and this is home." She lives on a ridge overlooking the Tennessee River in the Chattanooga suburb of Hixson, with her husband, Steve, and with their children and grandchildren nearby.