Media
AACC Sponsors Reading
Rick Black, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Kim Dana Kupperman, Candice Mayhill, and Katherine E. Young shared excerpts from their essays during the April 8, 2021, reading. Candice, associate professor of English at AACC, moderated a discussion afterward that touched on ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the essayists’ writing. To watch the video of the event, click here.
Silver Spring Town Center Reading
Readings by essayists JoAnne Growney, Monica Mische, and Tabitha Nichole Smith on March 25, 2021, explored the beauty found in quiet moments, on a run around DC’s national monuments, and in a woman’s relationship with her grandmother. Afterward SSTC executive director Lisa Martin moderated a discussion with the essayists and co-editors Catherine Lee and Rosemary Winslow that explored ways of finding beauty during the COVID-19 pandemic. To watch the video of the event, click here. Passcode: yW5fhs*+
Writer’s Center Hosts Reading
The late Stanley Plumly, award-winning poet and author of the essay, “Barnesville, O,” was honored with a special presentation at the start of this Deep Beauty event on March 16, 2021. Nancy Naomi Carlson, Teri Ellen Cross Davis, Yael Flusberg, and Bonnie Naradzay read excerpts from their essays. Writer’s Center communications director Zach Powers moderated a discussion afterward with the essayists and co-editors Catherine Lee and Rosemary Winslow. To watch the video of the event, click here.
3 Essayists Nominated for
Pushcart Prize
Three of our Deep Beauty writers have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize: Sonya Huber, for her essay “Magpies of Industry”; Kim Dana Kupperman, for “Lilacs at Auschwitz”; and Deborah Ziska, for “American Protest.” The prize honors poems, stories, and essays nominated by editors and published by small presses and journals worldwide. For more information about the Woodhall Press anthology, visit thedeepbeautybook.com.
5-Star Amazon Review: “
These Essays Are Just What I Needed”
“The essays in this collection take a wide view of what ‘beauty’ means and that’s what makes the essays special. They are thoughtful, intense, and lovely -- everything that you might want from writing. I found them to be soothing, a sort of balm against the malevolence that is the year 2020. Recommended.”
Essay Collection Celebrates Wonder
“You may not recognize a lot of these writers — we didn't — but no matter. You will recognize the experiences and the observations they share — the beauty hidden in a messy place, in small things like socks, in a protest, in the last months of a life, in a city. Especially meaningful to us was the chapter on holy spaces. In “Lilacs at Auschwitz,” Kim Dana Kupperman writes about feeling safe as Hasidim men prayed in the galley on the airplane as she flew to Europe. In “My Varanasi Lakshmi,” Katie O'Connell describes encountering “one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen . . . an in-the-flesh version of the Hindu goddess who represents abundance and prosperity”; she was selling malas, bangles, necklaces, and bracelets to the tourists. In “God Is Beautiful and Loves Beauty,” Asna Husin, a Muslim, reflects upon a hadith and how she has tried to manifest divine beauty in her life.” To read the entire review, click here.
‘A great experience’
On Oct. 1, 2020, co-editors Rosemary Winslow and Catherine Lee joined seven Deep Beauty essayists for a Zoom reading hosted by the Arts Club of Washington. Afterward, an audience member remarked that he was “moved” by the readings and described the event as “a great experience to disconnect from my world and join someone else’s for an hour.” To listen to the reading and discussion, click here.
‘A fantastic collection’
Elkins Air host Martha Carey read Deep Beauty essays by Laura Garrison and Sonya Huber and described the book as “a fantastic collection” that is “perfectly curated.” The essays are "about appreciating and noticing and experiencing wonder and beauty and ... an awareness of aesthetics and all these things that sort of remind you, not necessarily through human interaction, that you’re very much alive and connected to beautiful things even when everything is insane, which it is right now." To listen to the Sept. 1, 2020, reading, click here.