Headstrong: Embracing Alopecia and Becoming Pañuelo Girl

Headstrong: Embracing Alopecia and Becoming Pañuelo Girl

Christy has a secret. While even her closest friends see the confident young professional rocking a blond ’90s perm, she privately battles an ever-growing patchwork of bald spots, enlisting stinging creams, painful injections, and clever camouflage, from comb-overs to berets. Then, after her brief marriage collapses, her eyebrows vanish, too. At first, Christy manages her alopecia areata with wigs, creating a masterful façade of a woman with striking auburn tresses. She even runs marathons in a baseball cap adorned with sweaty strips of fake hair. When 26 miles isn’t enough distance from her secret, she quits her corporate job and joins the Peace Corps, embarking on a bold, sexy, and intentional journey of radical self-acceptance. On a remote Honduran island, Christy embraces a new image, her bare scalp wrapped in the colorful headscarves—pañuelos—that earn her the nickname “Pañuelo Girl.” But she can’t run forever. Who will she be when she returns home to a society obsessed with beautiful hair? "A triumphant story of a long journey of self-acceptance." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Bailey's journey, well-written and highly personal, reveals the complicated self-awareness and self-confidence that she ultimately achieved with her time in the Peace Corps and carried back to her life in the US. ... I highly recommend this memoir and the powerful journey it describes." —Robert Thurston (Peace Corps volunteer, Venezuela 1968-70), Peace Corps Worldwide Christy, in her riveting and urgent memoir, emotionally and metaphorically unwraps the scarf from her head, seemingly layer by layer, as she brings us deep inside the experience of alopecia, a hair-loss disease first noticed by her mother when Christy was a child. But, at its core, it's also an exploration about self-definition, identity, and self-image. What does the hair loss mean, metaphorically? How does Christy come to terms with it? Ultimately, through her writing, Christy arrives at her deepest and most revelatory emotional truths. —Sue William Silverman, author, Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul This is a memoir for the soul—one woman's journey to find her true self inside her mirror. Battling self-doubt, a bad marriage, cultural expectations, and a body rejecting hair growth, Christy Bailey travels from North Carolina to Central America to Colorado in search of purpose and belonging, only to discover that her destination resides within. Headstrong redefines notions of femininity, strength, and liberation by showing us what it really means to be bald and beautiful. Christy's voice resonates with sass, grit, wisdom, and light. It will sing for decades to come. ­—Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, author of Finding Querencia: Essays from In Between This is a story about a woman who spends much of her life trying to conform to conventional beauty standards, only to discover she is far too extraordinary to ever be just another pretty face. Christy Bailey is a stunning woman and an insightful writer. Her Headstrong is an inspiration for us all. —Tiffany Quay Tyson, award-winning author of The Past is Never and Three Rivers Headstrong is a tapestry of serious beauty: in the face of major life losses, including the loss of all her hair due to alopecia, Christy weaves rich childhood memories, smart cultural commentary, and a striking resiliency that grows from her vulnerability and the self-exposing progression of her disease. Her book is a testament to the force that Christy was to all who knew her, and a lasting legacy of her unique suffering and the hopeful courage it imparted to her life. —Megan Nix, author of Remedies for Sorrow Christy Bailey was one of the most beautiful writers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Her work is vivid, honest, vulnerable, and gutsy, just like Christy herself was. I admired Christy for her strength and dedication to her writing, and I'm so happy that her voice will be out in the world. I know Headstrong is going to help people. —Erika Krouse, author, Save Me, Stranger and Tell Me Everything Christy Bailey devoted her career to crafting meaningful, memorable narratives as a magazine editor, marketer, PR professional, blogger, and creative nonfiction writer. With an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, an MBA in marketing, and a BA in journalism, she mastered storytelling from just about any angle. She was active in Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, taught creative writing at the University of Denver and Regis University and to students who were unhoused or living with chronic illness, and was a writer-in-residence at Children's Hospital Colorado. A fearless traveler, she served in the Peace Corps in Honduras and traveled to 19 countries. She was hairless for 20 years.