award-winning author
JOAN SCHWEIGHARDT
Under the Blue Moon
Five Directions Press, 2023
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"This little book is a gem of tenderness as it looks at a hard-hitting reality. It brings to mind the expression, 'There but for the grace of God go I.' Yet it never preaches. It just quietly does what it should, and I found myself wishing fervently that everyone everywhere would read it and change the world."
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—Kate Niles, author of The Last Hanging of Ángel Martinez​, The Basket Maker (a ForeWord Magazine "Best Fiction of the Year") and other titles.
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"Hard luck, bad choices and tragedy stalk the characters of Under the Full Moon. So do love, compassion, and sometimes, a second chance. The story does not follow the cliched expectations; the characters, Lola and Ben, don't become friends or redeem one another. But the reader's appreciation of each character's journey is enhanced by the experiences of the other. This story is filled with heart, loss, and the fleeting triumph of good."
—Claudia H. Long is the author of Our Lying Kin, Nine Tenths of the Law, and other novels.
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"Schweighardt skillfully tackles a rarely addressed theme in fiction through the character of Ben, someone who could be any one of us, successful in one moment and living on the streets in the next. Juxtaposed is Lola, a woman overwhelmed and fragmented by a traumatic event. We are moved by the humanity and vulnerability of these characters and thus we can have hope for them. "
—Phyllis M Skoy, author of A Turkish Trilogy: What Survives, As They Are and A Coup, and Myopia, a memoir.
BookLife Prize - 2023
This touching novel centers on a woman who is lonely and grieving over a lost daughter and a man who is homeless and desperate for a new start. The author effectively weaves their stories together, forming a gratifying narrative arc.
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The Art of Touch
University of Georgia Press, 2023
In The Art of Touch: A Collection of Prose and Poetry from the Pandemic and Beyond, the unique voices of 39 of some of the most creative thinkers of our times have been brought together to consider the impact of one of our six main senses: touch. Psychologists, healers, massage therapists, academics, creative writers and others reflect on or tell personal stories about what it means to be able to touch, or to have to go without it—as so many did and still do because of the pandemic; how transmissions such as texting may impede opportunities for touch while those like Zoom may make it possible for people who otherwise might be left behind to be “in touch.” From the experience of touching beloved animals, to the lifechanging ways in which books and performances can touch us, virtually all aspects of touch are acknowledged in these pages.
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"In a time of pandemic, touch is a risk and a luxury. Touch informs life not only as an intimacy but also as a teacher. Thanks to the editors of this vivid anthology for gathering writers’ accounts that remind us of connections in crisis, help us laugh and grieve, and allow us finally to be touched."
—Hilda Raz, author of Letter from a Place I've Never Been: New and Collected Poems, 1986–2020
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"The Art of Touch is a remarkable collection of essays and poems on the motivations, transformations, catastrophes, and beauty that lie in human touch. The authors, who are poets, novelists, psychotherapists, and scientists, provide a full range of contemplations on their personal experience of touch, ranging from the terror of physical touch to the most recent advances in the study of touch by a neuroscientist. The pandemic has forced upon us the issue of the dangers of being touched by anyone and of touching something anyone else might have touched. We all know the dehumanizing effects of this situation just as we know the joy and beauty of touch with those we love. The reader will find that he or she is deeply touched by this book."
—Thomas H. Ogden, psychoanalyst, author of This Will Do
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Contributors: Linda DeFruscio, Donna Baier Stein, Susan J Tweit, Paula Coomer, Lynn C. Miller, Lynda Miller, Grace Stevens, Judith Simon Prager, Sarah Kotchian, Meg Kearney, Damian McNicholl, Raphael Frumkin, Sarah McElwain, Deborah Swift, Kate Niles, Phyllis Skoy, Anne Casey, Magdalena Ball, Alicia Ostriker, Bonnie Boucher, Becky Kennedy, Meg Tuite, Nicole Hardy, Robert Root, Paul Singer, Erika Dreifus, Quintin Collins, Maria Luisa Arroyo, Daniel B. Summerhill, Beatriz Terrazas, Christie Page, Rocco Lo Bosco, Laura Crucianelli, Alison Stone, Joy Castro, Will Jennings, Faye Rapoport DesPres..
