Jun 2, 2024
64 creators explore what it takes and what it means to thrive in this anthology's 87 works
Thriving, An Anthology of Personal Resilience through Prose, Poetry, and Illustration
May 1, 2024, East Greenbush, NY.
Thriving: An Anthology is open for preorder by Exsolutas Press, ahead of its June 4, 2024 release. The anthology includes 87 works of photography, illustration, poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction that lay bare the aspiration of all living beings to live robustly.
The vibrant watercolor cover art of dandelions growing from a stone wall was painted by children’s book illustrator Anne Catharine Blake, who also has a short story in the anthology. “Dandelions are the most audacious example,” said Thriving’s editor, Rhonda Rosenheck. “They’ll thrive given the least bit of sunshine and water.
In this book, you’ll read and see pictures of people choosing life, reframing challenges, wrestling personal demons, and celebrating blessings. The works are presented in six clusters: Noticing, Accepting, Wrestling, Opening, Entwining, and Exuberance.
In the Foreword, Bram Stoker Award- and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novelist Bracken MacLeod notes that thriving is hard work. The book, he writes, comprises “works by wonderful essayists, poets, and fiction writers with lessons and reflections on how to … transcend and thrive despite what biology, circumstance, or action may have inflicted upon us.”
Rosenheck is a published poet and humorist, and a retired educational leader. She was awarded a 2023 Individual Artists Grant by Saratoga Arts to edit and publish Thriving: An Anthology, through the nonprofit’s role as a New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Statewide Community Regrant site.
Thriving: An Anthology (ISBN: 978-1-7364642-5-0, $19.95) is available for preorder through May with a 15% discount (use coupon code ThrivingPreorder) exclusively at Golden Leaf Books, the independent, woman-owned bookshop partnering with Exsolutas Press. Go to https://goldenleafbooks.com/products/thriving-an-anthology?variant=45223615922428. Follow Exsolutas Press on Facebook and Instagram. To arrange signings, readings, bulk purchases, book-group appearances, and writing workshops, contact Rhonda Rosenheck at exsolutaspress@gmail.com.