A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write [Paperback]

Firecracker Award Finalist
Poets & Writers“Best Books for Writers” selection
Literary Hub“Best Books about Books” selection
Image: Art, Faith, Mystery“Top Ten of the Year” selection

In an essay entitled “Spirit and Vision” Melissa Pritchard poses the question: “Why write?” Her answer reverberates throughoutA Solemn Pleasure, presenting an undeniable case for both the power of language and the nurturing constancy of the writing life. Whether describing the deeply interior imaginative life required to write fiction, searching for the lost legacy of American literature as embodied by Walt Whitman, being embedded with a young female GI in Afghanistan, traveling with Ethiopian tribes, or revealing the heartrending story of her informally adopted son William, a former Sudanese child slave, this is nonfiction vividly engaged with the world. In these fifteen essays, Pritchard shares her passion for writing and storytelling that educates, honors, and inspires.

Melissa Pritchardis the author of, most recently, the novelPalmerinoand the short story collectionThe Odditorium. Her books have received the Flannery O’Connor, Janet Heidinger Kafka, and Carl Sandburg awards and two of her short fiction collections wereNew York TimesNotable Book and Editors’ Choice selections. Pritchard has worked as a journalist in Afghanistan, India, and Ethiopia, and her nonfiction has appeared in various publications, includingO, The Oprah Magazine,Arrive,Chicago Tribune, andWilson Quarterly. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Essays in this collection have been recently and prominently published: Still God Helps You: Memories of a Sudanese Child Slave, first published inWilson Quarterly(2013), was a Byliner exclusive, recognized byThe Atlanticas one of the years lC6