Photo courtesy of Amy L. Sazama
Amy L Sazama - Annual Midwest Book Awards
Amy L. Sazama accepts her gold award at the 2025 Midwest Independent Book Awards in the autobiography/memoir category.
Grief will enter everyone’s life, especially when loved ones die. Amy Leigh Sazama examines grief through the lens of loss—of her brother, mother and aunt—in her new book Fleetwood Dreams: Climbing a Mountain After a Landslide, published by Waukesha’s Ten 16 Press. Her book recently won Midwest Independent Book Award Gold Award in the category of memoir/autobiography.
A broadcast journalism graduate from UW-Whitewater, Sazama lost her brother in an armed robbery. She reacted by staying busy and trying to get on with her life. But nearly a year after his death, while covering the funeral of a murder victim, “all the grief, pain, heartache, trauma crept right back up,” she recalls. “I had a panic attack in the back of a news van I realized I wasn’t over the loss. Not even close. Basically, we can’t get around grief— we just have to go through it! I needed to step back and heal.”
The incident led her to a path of help-giving, first as a case worker for an adult population of the elderly and disabled. Eventually she pivoted to yoga and has been teaching the mind-body-spirit discipline for eight years to people who are often in physical or emotional pain. “So many of them have to put a ‘face’ on in the real world but can let that facade go in my class. For that hour, they can feel safe, let go of their thoughts and breathe into their body and pain and relax,” she says.
Sazama describes Fleetwood Dreams as a memoir of loss and the struggle to recover, giving insights “into what didn’t work for me while grieving—masking pain, drinking, pretending everything was OK, not talking about it, pretending it didn’t happen, keeping super busy.” She adds that the book also explores “how grief can look so different depending on how the person died. Was it an expected illness? Were they elderly? Did you get to say goodbye? Or was it a completely tragic event? This makes a difference.”
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Pondering how her own losses, Sazama decided to tell her story “because no matter what, it gives others permission to tell theirs and helps others feel less alone. It was also healing. Since writing it, I’ve learned so much about others. I’ve had deeper, more meaningful conversations, and that’s what’s important when it comes to healing—being able to talk about it and connect with others.”
And yes, Fleetwood Dreams is a reference to a song by Fleetwood Mac, one of her parents’ favorite bands, “a core memory of my childhood,” she says. And Fleetwood Mac also recorded a number called “Landslide.” “My book also talks about music—how music helps us heal.”
Amy Sazama will discuss Fleetwood Dreams from 10:30-11:30 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 16 at the Hartland Public Library.
