Awakening: Stories of Bodies & Consciousness (eBook)
$9.99
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 Opalek, 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.
The idea of the body, the object of the body–the culturally policed and commodified incarnations of the body–are stripped of all artifice and laid unapologetically bare in Awakenings. From aging and ability to trauma and transformation, each story in this anthology performs a kind of deliverance upon the reader. Through the brave testimonies and honest accounts of some phenomenal writers, we are reacquainted with our estranged forms and invited to empathize with our fellow humans…we are encouraged to live fully inhabited lives.
–Tara Stillions Whitehead, They More Than Burned
Awakenings is a celebration of the body, the whole body. These essays astonish with tales of teeth, arms, hips, gallbladders, lungs, toes and hair. And hearts, too. These are deeply moving stories about how we move through life and make sense of it all. More than anything, this collection celebrates voices. “Speaking out is a revolutionary act,” writes Sarita Sidhu. Awakenings is a spectacular revolutionary chorus.
–Ana Maria Spagna, author of Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going and Pushed: Miners, a Merchant, and (Maybe) a Massacre
With subjects ranging from mikveh to miscarriage, Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness is an honest and intimate collection of personal stories about struggles with physical frailty, shame, abuse, and body image. For many of the authors, recollecting the past through writing becomes a path towards acceptance and healing. As Alison McGhee says, “Body, oh body, she lives inside you but she doesn’t always remember, does she?” Reading these essays helps us remember what it means to belong to a body, to cherish and honor the most vulnerable aspects of ourselves.
–Joan Baranow, author of Reading Szymborska in a Time of Plague
Awakenings is more than an anthology. This collection is an offering, a chorus of voices carefully orchestrated, singing and howling, sometimes in harmony, other moments in acapella or hushed string ensemble. No matter, you’ll stay for the entire concert and find yourself forever altered after. The book launches with “The Body Knows” by Alison McGhee, tugging line by line—through meditation, incantation, song. Essay after essay spans body territory from violation to self-acceptance. I’m left with my own body in sway from the voltage of story, tender and profound, each approached with impeccable craft. Awakenings is part of a necessary conversation in our world and will linger in my heart.
–Rebecca Evans, author of Tangled by Blood, a memoir in verse
This fascinating collection of short pieces, as various as human existence, connects mind and body. More importantly it connects our individual selves to others, as we are shown in brief flashes what it is like to inhabit another body and the unique interpretation that each person brings to this experience.
–Shlomit Fuhrer, MD, Psychiatrist
There is such beauty and vulnerability in this collection. Such unexpected joy in these writers’ explorations of complicated, hard truths. Essay after gorgeous essay of validation and even comfort. “What if your body is glorious now?” Maureen Aitken writes in "The Question Body." And my whole self answers: YES.
–Hannah Grieco, editor of And If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing and Already Gone
I was moved to tears by several of the raw and revealing essays in Awakenings. This anthology honors what it means to inhabit the human body—especially in moments of immense betrayal. Cheers to the brave contributors for sharing their most personal stories!
–Debbie Russell, author of Crossing Fifty-One: Not Quite a Memoir
Regardless of your life experience Awakenings will expand your consciousness and awaken you to the real triumphs and challenges of being human. Not the sugar-coated version but an honest raw accounting of becoming your true self in a world that doesn’t encourage it. Sharing intimate details of our most important relationship, our relationship to ourselves. This collection is a powerful ray of healing light sent out into the world for all who read it.
–Laura Malfa, Spiritual coach at One Heart
If the body could speak, these are the tales it would tell. This moving collection of essays pulls back the curtain on marker moments from living in a body, inside and out. Together these pieces offer insights and collected wisdom that comes from exploring a body’s journey through pain, healing, size, health and aging.
–Ellen Blum Barish, author of Seven Springs: A Memoir and Views from the Home Office Window: On Motherhood, Family & Life
The essays in Awakenings explore the exquisite pleasure and pain of having a body. Through these narratives, the writers share not only the complexity of their corporeal forms but also the inner workings of their hearts and minds. We see the many ways our bodies can fail or betray us, make us vulnerable or weak, but we also see the glory in our bodies, which can triumph and survive. I felt newly awakened after reading this stunning collection – thankful to be alive and housed inside my own imperfect body.
–Shasta Grant, author of Gather Us Up and Bring Us Home and cofounder of Brown Bag Lit
These stories cover every aspect of the body, such as hair, teeth, breasts, things you can change, and things you can’t. If you’ve felt betrayed and empowered by your body, sometimes in the same moment, you’ll see yourself in this anthology and come away with a greater understanding and acceptance of human nature.
–Allison Renner, author of Won’t Be By Your Side
