Client Spotlight: Dan Glassman

Author and attorney Dan Glassman

In 2007, Dan Glassman had a perfect life—a growing legal practice, a happy marriage to a beloved local news anchor, two healthy children, and even a house with a white picket fence. But that spring—when he and his wife Beth were about to celebrate their 10th anniversary—life as they knew it came to a brutal halt: What Beth thought to be annoying but treatable headaches turned out to be advanced brain cancer.

She didn’t make it to their 11th anniversary.

Dan first came to me to get my thoughts on the memoir he’d written about this harrowing time. He’d been working on it for several years and wanted an honest assessment of its commercial potential. After reading it, I told him—honestly—that cancer memoirs are a hard sell for agents and publishers because there are so many of them. Still, I told him, some exceptional ones do make the cut. And I thought his, which combines brutal, clear-eyed honesty with laugh-out-loud humor, had such a distinctive and strong voice that it could have a shot. Dan already shares his story and lessons from this time regularly though talks at the University of Florida, and has channeled his loss into advocacy—he’s on the local board of the American Cancer Society and is active in fundraising and outreach related to cancer treatment and support for patients’ families. I caught up with him recently to chat about his writing journey and goals.

When and why did you decide to write your memoir about Beth and her final year?

So I never wanted to be an author. It was never anything that I had any intention or desire of doing, and I just had all of these memories that were flooding in my head when my children were very young. My daughter was eight and my son had just turned five, and I kind of wanted to put these things down so that they would have these kinds of memories as they grew older, these different stories and memories. And so I just started writing things down. I would work on it during my lunch, and there were periods of time I would write for several days and then I would take a month off and, you know, get involved in something else. And over time, after about two and a half or three years, I kind of had a bunch of stories that I had written down. My daughter has read it. My son hasn’t wanted to read it yet. Over time, if he ever wants to read it, at least it'll be there for him.

For you, what was the hardest thing about writing the memoir?

The memories weren't the hardest thing to write. I think the hardest thing to write, for me, wasn't the past, but thinking about the present, and that I felt so sad that Beth wasn't a part of it. And that was the hardest thing was realizing that. Not what she went through, which was really horrific, but what she didn't have the ability to go through.

When you reached out to me, were you nervous about getting your memoir edited? Where what were your goals for doing this?

Well, you know, I always considered potentially trying to get published. I knew that I had no training or experience. Understanding I have no background or training as a writer and that wasn't my strength, but being able to at least express the stories and my opinions, I thought was really important. I just really wanted this, to have somebody help me maybe refine it so that it would be in a better form.

And what was the experience like for you? I mean, did you find it difficult or stressful or helpful?

No, you made the experience wonderful, it wasn't stressful at all. You know, one’s always a little hesitant, I don't want to say of rejection, but you always have that concern that somebody's going to say, well, that's not really good, or it's, you know, not important, or it's not memorable. And so you always have that reservation when you’ve spent so much time on it and it means so much to you. And what has so much value intrinsically to you may not have any value to anybody else.

You don't feel like that now?

No, no, you were wonderful. You didn’t make me feel like that at all. As an attorney, unfortunately, I know we've never been accused of being brief in anything. And one of my issues is being tremendously wordy and repetitive. And it’s helpful to have somebody come in and say, “well, maybe consider, you know, your point is well made, and maybe you could say it in three words rather than seven words.”

Tell me a bit about your cancer advocacy. That's something you're still involved in, right?

Yeah, so it's a very big passion of mine. I am on the local board of the American Cancer Society. In addition to being a board member, I'm also the chair for a what's called Real Men Wear Pink in raising money for breast cancer. So I've been doing this for many years now. And basically, I got involved because my wife passed away from cancer, and my mother passed away from cancer. My law partner’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer when they had two children, twins. And I just was devastated to take those boys through what my children went through. And so I got involved in this program, and I've been running it for about four or five years now. And we've been very blessed and been very, very successful, and it's raising a lot money for research and treatment, and what we raise stays here locally.

From your experience, what do you think are the most critical needs for our families of patients with cancer?

Well, I think there are there are obviously several different aspects that are so critical. The first is the research to hopefully be able to find cures or ways to, if not eliminate it, to at least allow us to have the potential to have higher success rates over we've had over time. Secondly, what is incredibly important is supporting the families. And there's programs such as helping people with fundraising, helping families provide access to health care, providing them with rides, helping them support with you know, with WIC, there's so many facets of what of what people go through. And then third component is, quite frankly, education and trying to get the word out there about how vital it is for examinations, and to make sure that if you are if we are able to catch it, catch it early because the quicker it is caught the much better the results. And unfortunately, if it's not caught early, while you still have, you know, treatment options, and certainly, you know, with our great doctors and everything else we have good results. The best results are always with early detection, the sooner we can diagnose it, the faster we can treat it, and the stopping it from spreading or getting worse. And so, you know, research, providing resources and then information for people realizing how important yearly checks are and how to do self examination. Education.

Do you think that sharing your story could be helpful to others going through similar experiences? And if so, how?

Absolutely. So, the story, as you know, isn't just a story about cancer. I think the true story is about overcoming whatever obstacles are in your way. And you know, each and every one of us are going to face our own obstacles, unfortunately, for maybe it will be cancer, but it can be depression, family issues, it could be addiction. No matter what you do, it's okay. Here's where I face myself. This is the situation that I'm in. What steps can I take to try to take control of my life as I try to move in the right direction? So it's really to me the story of overcoming a situation.

And so what's next for you in terms of your advocacy or your writing or, you know, whatever other big plans?

Well, now that I've gotten the book edited, I’m going to try to reach out to some different individuals to look into different avenues of potential publication, if that's possible. You know, I still speak about it every semester at the university and have made it into a course to try to either educate or try to empower students to think about things in a different light. I do that every semester. And we're going to  keep raising money to support other families that might be in the same situation that unfortunately we were in.

Do you have important life lessons to share with the world? Contact me for a no-obligation conversation about how to put them into writing.