In Reflections of a Purple Zebra, Nancy Wright Beasley is a modern voice struggling in our own familiar territory with the ancient dichotomies of life and death, love and hate, sickness and health, good and evil, joy and sorrow. Nancy never blinks in the struggle, even when the pain is seemingly unbearable, and she never leaves any doubt that the side of love and life will win out.

What Churchill called the black dog”of depression may have its day, but Nancy's joyous purple zebra of life will be the ultimate victor. Her insights are startlingly original: cradling a dying eagle on the side of the interstate allows her in a strangely beautiful way to understand and even experience her husband's early death.

The instinctive hugs she gives and receives in an Indiana church a few days after September 11, 2001, reverberate all the way back to Virginia. Her writer's block evaporates when she meets a 5-year-old on a beach who maps out his plan to become a scientist in the Congo.

Beautifully written, Nancy's stories are about the comfort of family and friends, courage in the face of death and evil, wisdom, the connectedness of all human beings and ultimately the joy of living. I recommend them to you.
—Randy Fitzgerald chairs the English and Mass Communications Department at Virginia Union University. He was a longtime public relations director at the University of Richmond and columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “

Nancy Beasley reaches out where there seems to be nothing and shows us what we missed. Her graceful sentences stir the mind without calling attention to themselves.” —Gene Cox, WWBT-NBC12, Richmond, Va.

“One thing that became clear long ago about Nancy Wright Beasley, she doesn't know how to say quit. Check voice mail or e-mail in the morning, and if a message has come in at, say, 2:37 a.m., chances are i's from her, still up, writing and thinking. That's the type of true grit born of the country upbringing she writes about in this collection of columns. For Nancy,  writing, like living, is always a personal adventure.”
—Ed Kelleher
associate metro editor
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Reading Reflections of a Purple Zebra is like sitting down with a best friend over tea where the talk resonates deeply and freely. This is a great read for those moments when you just want to be with someone with an understanding heart.”
—Sharon Baldacci
author of A Sundog Moment

“Nancy Beasley has never met a stranger, nor run away from life. Like a zebra with purple stripes, she has always been in a class by herself. Thanks to Nancy's ndomitable spirit and her gift for words, we can see more clearly the riches around us, if we'll just look for them.”
—Emyl Jenkins
author of Stealing With Style