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by Rhonda Rosenheck (Editor), Bracken MacLeod (Foreword by), Alan P. Hayes (Illustrator)
Thriving: An Anthology invites you to glimpse the many facets of thriving through 87 imaginative works by 63 writers, poets and photographers, and then to reflect inwardly at what helps them thrive. Human thriving comes about through awareness, truth-seeking, persistence, reframing, faith, questions, forgiveness, humor, generosity, and by cherishing the relationships that nurture us. It can be characterized as vibrant well-being that has been cultivated in a nutrient-rich loam of satiation, gratitude, joy, trust, creativity, openness, beauty and purpose.
The Foreword by multiple award-nominated novelist Bracken MacLeod is, itself, a work of art. A survivor of childhood trauma, MacLeod continually crafts a life filled with love, purpose, creativity and community. In the Foreword, he concisely frames the concept and questions of thriving then lays open his own, often painful, path to thriving and shows us how literature has nourished him along the way.
The anthology's 87 poems, photographs, and short works of fiction and creative nonfiction (observation and memoir) are grouped into six clusters: Noticing, Accepting, Wrestling, Opening, Entwining, and Exuberance. These stories, photos and poems touch on such topics as addiction, recovery, careers, loneliness, COVID, anxiety, mortality, grief, love, parenting, childing, immersion in nature, aging, appreciation, overcoming challenges, and finding joy in even the tiniest of things. In these works of artful imagination, the 63 contrubutors invite readers into unknown worlds that are, at the same time, familiar. In some works, a haunting quality provokes empathy and deja vu. In others, humor and surprise elate the reader or bring on an anexpected laugh.
The clusters emerged from the selected pieces themselves, through the editor's intuitive sorting process. They hint at an order of operations: Noticing is an essential beginning while Accepting and Wrestling lead to the Opening and Entwining necessary for a person to thrive. Perhaps Exuberance (the only non-gerund) is that gleeful pause of self-awareness: I am thriving! And in just that moment, something shifts, and we Notice something new, maybe even something that could trip us up. The next trailhead appears, and before we know it, we're traversing the next leg of our journey to thriving.
Each entry can be enjoyed alone or alongside its neighbors. Go to the page you intend to land on, and then treat yourself to enjoying pages you happen upon along the way. Read, enjoy, reflect, discover, and repeat.
