KGB Bar

Come on out for DIRT: The Quirks, Habits, and Passions of Keeping House (Seal Press, Spring 2009). This thought-provoking collection of personal essays offers a multidimensional look at the universal challenge of keeping our stuff, our dwellings, and our personal space clean and uncluttered. How we feel about keeping house speaks volumes about our roots, relationships, and our outlook on life.

Mira Bartók is the author of thirty children’s books on the art and history of world cultures. Her essays, book reviews, and poetry have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, The Bellingham Review, Kenyon Review, Tikkun, Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, and LINK Magazine. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been cited as a “Notable Mention” in The Best American Essay series. Mira is currently at work on The Memory Palace: A Memoir in Words and Pictures, an illustrated memoir about her relationship with her schizophrenic and homeless mother.

Janice Eidus’s recent novel, The War of the Rosens, won an Independent Publisher Book Award in Religion and was a finalist for the Sophie Brody Medal, an award for the most distinguished contribution to Jewish Literature for Adults. Her other books include the short story collections The Celibacy Club and Vito Loves Geraldine and the novels Urban Bliss and Faithful Rebecca. Her forthcoming novel, The Last Jewish Virgin explores myth, Jewish identity, and mothers and daughters.

Mindy Lewis is the author of LIFE INSIDE: A Memoir (Atria Books 2002, Washington Square Press 2003). Her essays have been published in Newsweek, Lilith, Body & Soul, and Poets & Writers magazines. She is also editor of DIRT: Writers on the Quirks, Habits and Passions of Keeping House, an anthology forthcoming from Seal Press in Spring 2009. She teaches writing workshops at The Writer’s Voice of the Westside YMCA and at Brooklyn College. http://www.mindylewis.com

Rebecca McClanahan has published nine books, most recently Deep Light: New and Selected Poems 1987–2007 and The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings, which won the 2005 Glasgow Award for nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The Best American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, and numerous anthologies; awards include a Pushcart Prize, the Wood Prize from Poetry, and the Carter Prize for the essay. She lives in New York and teaches in the MFA program of Queens University (Charlotte) and the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center.

Contributors: Sally Koslow, Joyce Maynard, Lisa Selin Davis, Rebecca Walker, Brian Gerber, Mindy Greenstein, Patty Dann, Kathleen Crisci, Ann Hood, Kyoko Mori, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Markie Robson-Scott, Lisa Solod Warren, Alissa Quart, Sonya Huber, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Teena Apeles, Nancy Stiefel, Mindy Lewis, Rand Richards Cooper, Louise DeSalvo, Mimi Schwartz, Katy Brennan, Mira Bartók, Branka Ruzak, Janice Eidus, Kayla Cagan, Jessica Shines, Julianne Malveaux, Michael Hill, Louise Rafkin, Nancy Peacock, Richard Goodman, Laura Shaine Cunningham, Juliet Eastland, Pamela Paul, Krista Lyons, Rebecca McClanahan; Foreword by Penelope Green