Author • Nurse • Survivor • Storyteller
Meet Tracey Stankus
Tracey Stankus writes from a life shaped by perseverance, caregiving, family hardship, loss, faith, and the decision to keep moving forward. Her work reflects a deeply personal belief that even the hardest parts of our lives can become part of a larger story of healing and purpose.
Tracey Lee Stankus’ story is rooted in perseverance, purpose, and faith. Becoming a mother as a teenager and coming from a broken home, she learned early what it meant to move forward without a safety net.
While raising her son and working to provide for their future, Tracey put herself through college and pursued a calling in healthcare. She became a registered nurse, building a career centered on care, responsibility, and service to others.
Her life has also included seasons of family conflict, addiction within the family, caregiving, grief, personal loss, difficult relationships, and health challenges of her own. As a cancer survivor, Tracey understands the uncertainty that can come with facing a life-altering diagnosis and learning how to live on the other side of it.
Through every season, faith has remained a steady foundation. Writing became another way to reflect, process, speak honestly, and leave something meaningful behind. Her work is grounded in the hope that readers who feel isolated, overlooked, or exhausted by difficult circumstances will recognize that they are not alone.
Her Story
A life built through responsibility, resilience, and faith.
In Her Own Words
“I want people to know that they’re not alone.”
Tracey hopes readers who feel lost, unheard, unseen, or misunderstood will find recognition, connection, and encouragement in her story.
What Shapes Her Voice
Experience lived. Lessons carried forward.
Tracey’s writing comes from the intersection of caregiving, motherhood, survival, faith, reflection, and a desire to connect with people who are walking through their own difficult seasons.
A Caregiver’s Perspective
Years in nursing shaped Tracey’s instinct to care for others and gave her a close view of vulnerability, responsibility, and the complicated realities people carry behind closed doors.
A Survivor’s Perspective
Her own experiences with cancer, grief, fractured relationships, and family struggles inform a voice that is candid about hardship without giving up on hope.
A Faith-Led Perspective
Prayer, Scripture, grace, and a belief in God’s presence remain central to the way Tracey makes sense of pain, healing, forgiveness, and renewal.
LA Times Festival of Books 2026
Moments from the Festival
Tracey joined readers, authors, and book lovers at the 2026 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, marking a meaningful first for her as an author. Though she admitted she was nervous, the experience became an opportunity to step outside her comfort zone, connect with others, and speak more openly about the story behind Broken Pieces.
Festival Interview
Why Tracey wrote Broken Pieces.
In her LA Times Festival of Books interview, Tracey speaks candidly about the experiences that shaped Broken Pieces—including hardship, addiction, teen pregnancy, family betrayal, grief, faith, perseverance, and the need to keep going when life feels overwhelming.
She shares that the unexpected loss of her mother became one of the moments that pushed her to look more deeply at her own story. Writing helped her gather difficult pieces of the past, make sense of them, and find a measure of closure.
At the heart of the conversation is a simple hope: that readers who feel lost, unheard, unseen, or misunderstood will recognize themselves in her story and know they are not alone.
From the Interview
“Beauty and scars to me means that there’s beauty even in the hard parts of life. And sometimes what comes out of that can just be beautiful like a kaleidoscope of colors.”
Tracey also reflects on stepping outside her comfort zone at the festival, saying the experience reminded her that people are often on the same journey toward becoming their true, authentic selves.
Her Story Continues on the Page
Discover Broken Pieces.
Tracey’s memoir brings together personal memories, faith, grief, family, addiction, healing, boundaries, and the belief that even our scars can become part of something meaningful.
Your scars are part of your story—but they do not have to be the end of it.