Melissa Elliott is a social worker with The Denver Hospice. She created this mask with the theme of Narratives - the stories we use to describe our world and our selves. Melissa feels that "nothing is more important to our sense of identity than the words we use to describe our lives. I love hearing the narratives that patients and their families share with me. It helps me to understand them and their situation as little else can". A shrewd bibliophile will recognize works on this mask from authors such as Tolstoy, Whitman, Miller, Bronte, Salinger, and Wilder; authors who wrote some of Melissa's favorite narratives about our world.