Mosaic of a Life is a compilation of creative writing that utilizes life narrative to examine living with a physical disability. The narrative centers on experiences with disability and society's interpretation of those experiences to deconstruct some of the myths surrounding physical disability and chronic illness. Mosaic of a Life takes the reader through the life experiences of a girl/woman who happens to be disabled. Being disabled is not all that the girl is, but disabled is all much of the world sees . . . until the world catches a glimpse from within the girl. Suddenly, disability is not as it was.

The themes in Mosaic of a Life are subtly revealed and ruminated upon in chronologically ordered short stories. The stories are reflective of moments when a girl/woman learns about her assumed identities and position in the world around her. These reflections provoke the reader to consider her/his assumptions regarding the roles that ability, race, gender, class, age, religion and ethnicity play in the development of white, working-class United States. This work looks at the influence of external factors on internal conceptions of self in the development of people living with physical differences. The narrator looks at the sociological components of social development, such as peer interactions, familial relations, body image and socio-economic position.

These various components of self-identity are interwoven together in order to produce a more unfeigned and multi-dimensional understanding of the role of disability in the social development of a child. In addition, Mosaic of a Life also examines internal conflict that arises from issues of self-identity development, as well as those of mind/body dualism, and how the level of internal conflict increases in the lives of people living with marginalized bodies. Here internal conflict takes form when commonly embraced societal principles directly collide with personal feelings and thoughts. The abovementioned themes are but a few that surface and are entwined throughout Mosaic of a Life in a complex, textured manner that is, in fact, open to interpretation.