Stride
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Product Details
Publisher: GFB
Release Date: September 22, 2026
Formats: Paperback, Ebook, Audiobook
ISBN: PB: 978-1-967510-60-3; EB: 978-1-967510-61-0; AUD: 979-8-950546-16-7
Trim: 5.5 x 8.5
Page Count: 224
How I Walked Away from Trauma Toward Healing
Avra Wing
One spring afternoon in 1990, writer and mother Avra Wing, while holding her young son, is crushed by an out-of-control car careening onto the sidewalk near her Brooklyn home. Avra manages to hold on to her little boy, who is physically unharmed. She loses her right leg.
Stride is an unflinchingly honest account of living with sudden disability in a world designed for the able-bodied. Wing writes with poetic intimacy about her experience navigating the physical and emotional obstacles to recovery, her friends’ and family’s reactions to her injury, and the hard-won wisdom gained from learning that if you reach out your hand, someone will take it. Chronicling personal loss but also triumph—including adopting her third child—she tells a powerful story of recovery and resilience.
Stride illuminates how a radically altered life path can lead from tragedy and loss to community, connection, and joy.
About the Author
Avra Wing is a writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her first novel, Angie, I Says, was a New York Times Notable Book and was made into the movie Angie, starring Geena Davis. She leads a writing workshop at the Center for Independence of the Disabled, NY. Stride is her first memoir.
Visit the author’s website at avrawing.com
Reviews
“Stride is a thoughtful and candid memoir that examines the aftermath of a sudden, life-altering injury. Avra Wing resists a conventional ‘overcoming adversity’ narrative, offering a more nuanced account of recovery shaped by uncertainty, vulnerability, and endless, iterative adjustments. Her reflections on embodiment, identity, and visibility are particularly compelling, inviting readers to consider how the body and self are inextricably intertwined. Stride acknowledges that healing is often partial and uneven. It is a reflective and engaging read, especially for those interested in the lived experience of illness and recovery.” —Dr. Rana Awdish, bestselling author of In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope and the forthcoming After Shock: Learning to Reinhabit My Body After Illness.
“Avra Wing’s affecting memoir Stride is about the pain, shame, and self-awareness that followed from losing her leg. . . . This account of the accident, the surgery, and the recovery period is visceral and comprehensive. . . . Written in the aftermath of a traumatic injury and the irrevocable loss of amputation, the eye-opening memoir Stride celebrates community support.” —Foreword Clarion Review
“We spend our lives navigating danger, doing all we can to avoid catastrophe. In Avra Wing’s case, it struck when she was innocently strolling down a sidewalk, young son in her arms. In the thirty-five years since then, she’s led an incredible life, raised three children, sustained a marriage, written books, traveled the world, taught writing to those with disabilities, and tried to make sense of and make peace with what happened to her. Stride is an engaging memoir of the before, during, and after of this one event, layered with hard-won insight, grace, and wisdom for the ages—and for the moments right in front of us. [Wing’s] voice is so engaging that you feel that if you met her, you could pick up the conversation she has with herself and the reader and talk long into the night.” —Elizabeth Benedict, author of Rewriting Illness: A View of My Own
“A standout. . . . Wing’s story is ultimately about embracing life to its fullest, identifying and pursuing one’s passions, and making the most of achievements and goals while coping with sorrow to ultimately emerge stronger—and perhaps wiser. Everyone needs these messages in modern times.” —Midwest Book Review
“Wing’s Stride: How I Walked Away from Trauma Toward Healing is a memoir about survival, but more than that, it is a book about what comes after survival. . . . Wing does not present healing as a neat arc or a triumphant slogan; instead, she shows how trauma lingers, how identity can fracture, and how even ordinary spaces can become obstacles in a world not built with disability in mind. . . . It’s about learning how to inhabit a changed life, and Wing tells that story with clarity, courage, and grace.” —Manhattan Book Review