Katarzyna A. Małecka is an Assistant Professor in the Department of North American Literature and Culture at the University of Lodz, Poland. Dr. Małecka is the author of numerous publications on death and grief in literature. She has been awarded three international scholarships to conduct her research on loss and bereavement: the interdisciplinary research grant by the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna to study the bibliotherapeutic aspects of literature in work with grieving children; the Fulbright Senior Award Scholarship for her project on the use of modern bereavement memoirs in grief therapy; and the Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship to study the grief witnessing, bibliotherapeutic, and educational aspects of grief memoirs. She is currently working on her new project exploring the bibliotherapeutic application of grief narratives in the clinical setting and their use in the education of future helping professionals.