Lucy Grealy (1963 -- 2002) was born to an Irish family -- her father at one point directed all television programming in Ireland -- but she lived her relatively brief life primarily in England and the United States. She attended Sarah Lawrence and came to the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop for a graduate degree, 1985 -- 1987. She published two books: Autobiography of a Face (1994) and As Seen on TV: Provocations (2000) and contributed an essay, "Mirrors," to Patricia Foster (ed.), Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul (Anchor Books, 1994). Grealy's life was shaped by childhood cancer that disfigured her face and led to a long series of operations intended to reconstruct her jaw and otherwise reduce or repair the disfigurement. At least in part, this lead her to severe drug dependence and thus to her death by drug overdose at the age of 39.