Back to Love is set for release in the U.S. May 25 on the singer-songwriter’s independent label, BNC Records. The album is a triumph for Nielsen Chapman because it was completed as a result of surgery last year to remove a benign brain tumor.

After struggling through eight months of writer’s block, doctors discovered a brain tumor that was affecting the language center of her brain.

“I woke up the morning after surgery and got the two lines I’d been struggling to figure out for ‘How We Love,’ just like that. It was like my spirit was saying, ‘Okay, we’re back in business,” Nielsen Chapman explained on her website.

“And one of my favorite songs on this collection, a song Annie [Roboff] and I had been working on for several years, “Even As It All Goes By,” just fell into place following my surgery. After countless hours of rewrites and brick walls between me and finishing that lyric …once the pressure was relieved, the creativity rebounded!”

The North American tour kicks off May 22 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., with dates booked through an Aug. 20 gig at The Ark in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Additional shows include Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis, Md. (May 24), Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, Mass. (June 11), World Café Live in Philadelphia (June 20) and a performance at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival at Gallagher Park in Alberta (Aug. 8).

On May 26 and 27 Nielsen Chapman is performing at the Lincoln Theatre in Columbus, Ohio along with the 135-voice Harmony Project Choir. Proceeds from the shows go towards The Harmony Project, a non-profit organization that supports philanthropy, community service, the environment and the celebration of the human spirit through performing arts.

In July she also takes part in another event dear to her heart with a July 30 slot at the inaugural Chords of Color for a Cause festival in Gainesville, Fla. The event, which features artists that are cancer survivors or have loved ones who have experienced cancer, aims to bring awareness to cancer treatment and research.

In 2000 Nielsen Chapman was diagnosed with breast cancer and six years before that her husband died from cancer. To share more about these experiences with her fans, the singer-songwriter has dedicated a section of her website to her journey with cancer.

Click here for Beth Nielsen Chapman’s official website.

Click here to read through her “Health & Recovery” section of her website.