Coming in April: Big Red by Ellie Dias

Letting go of stuff can be harder than you'd think...even when it’s jammed into a suitcase the size and color of a fire engine.

Seeking to experience simplicity and contentment in the “Happiest Place on Earth,” Dias planned her trip of a lifetime to the Himalayas to the nth degree.

Little did she know that nearly every step would be fraught with challenges, mishaps, and detours. Everything that could go wrong on her spiritual journey did. It was a fiasco that left her wondering whether the Universe—via her Big Red Suitcase—was trying to teach her something.


Ellie Dias, a devotee of Buddhist philosophy, introspection, and yoga, has a graduate degree in Education with a concentration in biology. Her career has been focused on health and wellness as a pediatric nurse, clinician working with families whose babies were at risk for SIDS, a division Vice President of a women’s health care company and a professor. Teaching Anatomy and Physiology, she merged her understanding of the human body with her sixteen-year practice of meditation, incorporating it in a classroom setting.

Writing a book had been percolating in the back of Ellie’s mind, but life got in the way until she was inspired by a solo journey to the Himalayas. Her debut book, Big Red: How I Learned Simplicity from a Suitcase, is a story of challenges, perseverance and humor as she struggles to jettison her Western ways halfway around the world while lugging a 95-pound suitcase—full of what she is convinced are the bare necessities. Common sense should have told her how completely inappropriate all of her “must-haves” were for spending three and a half weeks in the farmlands of Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, and the Nepalese jungle.

Ellie participates in a book club, writing critique group, and is a member of Sisters in Crime. An artist of water color and pastels, she lives with her husband Ron and dog Roxie in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. She has two children, Michael and Michele and two beautiful grandchildren Aidan and Sebastian Dias. She is currently writing her first novel.

Visit Ellie online at http://elliedias.com/