What happens when 49 authors sit down to craft their experiences of living in a body? Magic! Curated by Diane Gottlieb, with a foreword by Gayle Brandeis, AWAKENINGS: STORIES OF BODIES & CONSCIOUSNESS is truly a magical anthology of short essays, filled with trauma and triumph; pleasures and pain; challenges, resilience, and growth. A host of seasoned writers, including Alison McGhee, Jesse Lee Kercheval, and Jacqueline Doyle, alongside emerging artists, such as Camille U. Adams, Terry Opaleck, and Sarita Sidhu, share their hearts, their limbs, their breasts--even their teeth!--on the page in this singularly stunning array of diverse voices, journeys, and literary forms. No matter where you turn in this tribute to the miracles, mishaps, and mysteries of the body, you will be moved. Awakenings will sometimes make you laugh, often make you cry, and will always spur a deep appreciation for the flesh and bones that carry us all through life.
Brandeis, Gayle: -
Gayle Brandeis is the author, most recently, of the essay collection Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss (Overcup Press). Earlier books include the memoir The Art of Misdiagnosis (Beacon Press), the novel in poems, Many Restless Concerns (Black Lawrence Press), shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Award, the poetry collection The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Press), the craft book Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne) and the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won the PEN/Bellwether Prize, Self Storage (Ballantine), Delta Girls (Ballantine), and My Life with the Lincolns (Henry Holt BYR), chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin. Gayle's essays, poetry, and short fiction have been published in places such as The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, O (The Oprah Magazine), The Rumpus, Salon, and more, and have received numerous honors, including the Columbia Journal Nonfiction Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, Notable Essays in Best American Essays 2016, 2019, and 2020, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award and the 2018 Multi Genre Maverick Writer Award. She was named A Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine, and served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014, with a focus on bringing writing workshops to underserved communities. She teaches in the MFA programs at Antioch University and University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. She lives in Highland Park, Illinois.
Gottlieb, Diane: -
Diane Gottlieb MSW, MEd, MFA is a writer and educator, whose words appear in 2023 Best Microfiction, River Teeth, SmokeLong Quarterly, HuffPost, The Rumpus, Barrelhouse, Identity Theory, Hippocampus Magazine, Split Lip, Chicago Review of Books, Bending Genres and 100-Word Story, among other literary journals and anthologies. She is the winner of Tiferet Journal's 2021 Writing Contest in the nonfiction category, was longlisted for the 2023 Wigleaf Top 50, and nominated for Best Small Fiction 2023. She is the Prose/CNF Editor of Emerge Literary Journal. You can find her at dianegottlieb and on FB, IG, and Twitter @DianeGotAuthor.
