Hardback | |
September 10, 2024 | |
9781985900646 | |
English | |
208 | |
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$50.00 USD, £45.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Electronic book text | |
September 10, 2024 | |
9781985900660 | |
9781985900646 | |
English | |
208 | |
8.50 Inches (US) | |
5.50 Inches (US) | |
$26.00 USD, £23.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Paperback / softback | |
September 10, 2024 | |
9781985900653 | |
English | |
208 | |
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5.50 Inches (US) | |
$26.00 USD, £23.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Electronic book text | |
September 10, 2024 | |
9781985900677 | |
9781985900646 | |
English | |
208 | |
8.50 Inches (US) | |
5.50 Inches (US) | |
$50.00 USD, £45.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
I Could Name God in Twelve Ways
Essays
I could dream in poetry, could summon words for spiritual experience, could name God in twelve ways and in ten times and places in history.
Award-winning writer Karen Salyer McElmurray details her life's journey across continents and decades in a poetic collection that is equal parts essay-as-memoir, memoir-as-Künstlerroman, and travelogue-as-meditation.
It is about the deserts of India. A hospital ward in Maryland. The blue seas of Greece. A greenhouse in Virginia. It is about the spirit houses of Thailand. The mountains of eastern Kentucky. The depths of the Grand Canyon. A creative writing classroom in Georgia. An attic in a generations-old house. It is about coming to terms with both memory and the power of writing itself.
At turns lyrical, poignant, and alluring, McElmurray probes her personal history from the stance of different places, perspectives, and vulnerabilities as she tenderly and fiercely searches for acceptance and a place to call home.
Award-winning writer Karen Salyer McElmurray details her life's journey across continents and decades in a poetic collection that is equal parts essay-as-memoir, memoir-as-Künstlerroman, and travelogue-as-meditation.
It is about the deserts of India. A hospital ward in Maryland. The blue seas of Greece. A greenhouse in Virginia. It is about the spirit houses of Thailand. The mountains of eastern Kentucky. The depths of the Grand Canyon. A creative writing classroom in Georgia. An attic in a generations-old house. It is about coming to terms with both memory and the power of writing itself.
At turns lyrical, poignant, and alluring, McElmurray probes her personal history from the stance of different places, perspectives, and vulnerabilities as she tenderly and fiercely searches for acceptance and a place to call home.
About the Author
Karen Salyer McElmurray is the author of Wanting Radiance: A Novel. Her memoir Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother's Journey is a National Book Critics Circle Notable Book and winner of the AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction. She has received numerous awards, including the Annie Dillard Prize, the New Southerner Literary Prize, the Orison Anthology Award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and multiple notable mentions in Best American Essays. She is a visiting writer and lecturer at various programs and reading series across the United States.
Reviews
"McElmurray teaches us how to reckon and ravel, how to unpack secrets, abandon maps, and learn from everything, even vertigo, even a global pandemic. This book is for everyone who has ever felt vulnerable in this world, which is to say, everyone."—Julie Marie Wade, author of Otherwise: Essays and Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing
"'What does it mean to come from the center of a labyrinth and find one's way out?' is a question these essays ask and answer with exquisite urgency. For McElmurray, writing is both a compass and an act of faith, and what a compass she wields, what faith, to lead us out of her labyrinths with a rare blend of fearlessness and vulnerability."—James Tate Hill, author of Blind Man's Bluff: A Memoir
"A psychedelic dreamworld metaphysical journey and spellbinding story of a life."—Cat Pleska, author of Riding on Comets: A Memoir
"Lyrical and radically fearless stories about suffering and revelations of beauty. You'll be spellbound in the current of a masterful storyteller."—Annie Woodford, author of Where You Come from Is Gone: Poems
"The essays in this stunning collection are elegiac, urgent, vulnerable—full of loss and longing. Although the narrative is rooted in Kentucky, the scope is global as the narrator travels literally and metaphorically toward love and away from the ghosts of the past."—Sue William Silverman, author of Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul
"A great pleasure to read. These lyrical essays explore what it means to leave a place where one has deep familial roots and to travel far and wide, geographically and culturally, without ever escaping the pull of home and its mysteries, richness, and sadness."—Zoe Zolbrod, author of The Telling: A Memoir
"'What does it mean to come from the center of a labyrinth and find one's way out?' is a question these essays ask and answer with exquisite urgency. For McElmurray, writing is both a compass and an act of faith, and what a compass she wields, what faith, to lead us out of her labyrinths with a rare blend of fearlessness and vulnerability."—James Tate Hill, author of Blind Man's Bluff: A Memoir
"A psychedelic dreamworld metaphysical journey and spellbinding story of a life."—Cat Pleska, author of Riding on Comets: A Memoir
"Lyrical and radically fearless stories about suffering and revelations of beauty. You'll be spellbound in the current of a masterful storyteller."—Annie Woodford, author of Where You Come from Is Gone: Poems
"The essays in this stunning collection are elegiac, urgent, vulnerable—full of loss and longing. Although the narrative is rooted in Kentucky, the scope is global as the narrator travels literally and metaphorically toward love and away from the ghosts of the past."—Sue William Silverman, author of Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul
"A great pleasure to read. These lyrical essays explore what it means to leave a place where one has deep familial roots and to travel far and wide, geographically and culturally, without ever escaping the pull of home and its mysteries, richness, and sadness."—Zoe Zolbrod, author of The Telling: A Memoir
Hardback | |
September 10, 2024 | |
9781985900646 | |
English | |
208 | |
8.50 Inches (US) | |
5.50 Inches (US) | |
$50.00 USD, £45.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Electronic book text | |
September 10, 2024 | |
9781985900660 | |
9781985900646 | |
English | |
208 | |
8.50 Inches (US) | |
5.50 Inches (US) | |
$26.00 USD, £23.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Paperback / softback | |
September 10, 2024 | |
9781985900653 | |
English | |
208 | |
8.50 Inches (US) | |
5.50 Inches (US) | |
$26.00 USD, £23.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Electronic book text | |
September 10, 2024 | |
9781985900677 | |
9781985900646 | |
English | |
208 | |
8.50 Inches (US) | |
5.50 Inches (US) | |
$50.00 USD, £45.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Other Titles by Karen Salyer McElmurray
Wanting Radiance
Karen Salyer McElmurray, with contributions by Christina Meares
Nov 2021
- South Limestone, an imprint of University Press of Kentucky
$19.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
Wanting Radiance
Karen Salyer McElmurray
Apr 2020
- South Limestone, an imprint of University Press of Kentucky
$24.95 USD
- Hardback
$24.95 USD
- Electronic book text
$24.95 USD
- Electronic book text
Other Titles in BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
Bluegrass Craftsman
edited by Frances L. S. Dugan and Jacqueline P. Bull
Dec 2025
- University Press of Kentucky
$30.00 USD
- Paperback / softback
$12.95 USD
- Electronic book text
Black Officer, White Navy
Reuben Keith Green. Foreword by John P. Cordle.
Jun 2024
- University Press of Kentucky
$60.00 USD
- Hardback
$30.00 USD
- Electronic book text
$30.00 USD
- Paperback / softback
Mi madre, mi maestra, critical edition
Bahia Mahmud Awah. Edited by Dorothy Odartey-Wellington.
May 2024
- Modern Language Association of America
$25.00 USD
- Paperback / softback
Other Titles in Literature & literary studies
The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature
Joseph Valente, Margot Gayle Backus, foreword by Fintan O'Toole
Dec 2020
- Indiana University Press
$28.00 USD
- Paperback / softback
Times of Mobility
edited by Jasmina Lukić, Sibelan Forrester, Borbála Faragó
Mar 2020
- Central European University Press
$100.00 USD
- Hardback
The Third Spring
Adam Schwartz
Feb 2012
- The Catholic University of America Press
$34.95 USD
- Paperback / softback