Every year millions of children lose their parents to gun violence, war, poverty, and infectious and genetic diseases. Every loss rips apart the loved ones who must continue on. Our guest today, renowned author, Charles Bock, identifies all too well with the pain of such a loss. His life changed forever when his wife, Diana, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2009, when their only daughter, Lily, was just 6 months old, despite several rounds of high-dose chemotherapy and radiation, and 2 bone marrow transplants, she passed away in December of 2011, just three days before Lily’s 3rd birthday. Charles was left devastated, drowning in medical bills, utterly alone, and of course responsible for little Lily.

Charles is a creative writing professor at New York University, and the author of the novels, Alice and Oliver and Beautiful Children which was a New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book, and which also won the Sue Kaufman prize for First fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in the New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time the believer, Vice, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, Writer’s Digest, as well as in numerous anthologies. His latest book, I Will Do Better delves into his journey in the two years following Diana’s passing. I Will do Better, is one of Oprah’s “Best Books of the Fall” and one of PEOPLE’s “Must Reads of Fall”.