The essays and poems in this collection are culled from writing previously published. There are essays on John Constable and Camille Pissarro, Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf, among others. Poems and drawings accompany the words. The concluding essay, “Paradise Reclaimed: Or, How I Grew Up Through English,” explores the author’s relation to reading and writing while a student at Berkeley in the 1960s. All together these writings, remarkable for their rhythm and grace, prove that the life of the mind—the heart’s imagination—is alive and well, and flourishing.
About the Author
Sharon Flitterman-King grew up in Southern California. She earned her B.A. (Phi Beta Kappa), M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from UC Berkeley, writing on Victorian Fiction. She was a founding faculty member of the Bard Institute for Writing and Thinking, and has written, taught, and lectured for many years. Her articles have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Independent, and The Artful Mind, as well as in collections on teaching and writing.
She lives with her husband, writer David C. King, in Upstate New York near the Berkshires. Together they have written award-winning educational books (The Statue of Liberty; Readers’ Guide to Night by Elie Wiesel). Her widely acclaimed historical novel, A Secret Star (TBM, 2010), about a Jewish child hidden by Polish Christians during World War II, has received high praise from adults and young adults alike.
