Everyday Magic features the best of Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg's blog of the same title, fields notes on the mundane and miraculous unfolding around us, and how to live with greater verve, meaning and joy. Journey through whimsical, tender, and fierce explorations of travel and homecoming, beloveds and the art of loving, grief and resilience, the arts and politics, spirit and being a body in essays as varied as "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Parenting," "Satan Called: He Wants His Weather Back," "Body Is As Body Does," "The Glory of Failing," "Have Torah, Will Travel," "How to Make a Decision About Anything," "Why Poetry Matters," "If You Give a Dog a Bagel," and "I Wanted an Enchilada, I Got a Prairie Fire" as well as meditations praising Clarence Clemons, Mexican food, Benazir Bhutto, bathtubs, Laura Nyro, Marian McPartland, and Davy Jones, among others. "Reading this book is like having a wise friend take you by the hand and walk you down a healing path. Thank you, Caryn, for showing us how to embrace the beauty, joy and pain in everyday life."
Harriet Lerner, Ph.D author of NYTimes bestseller The Dance of Anger and Why Won't You Apologize?
"Many thanks to Caryn for these beautiful lessons in living, really living from a poet laureate who reminds you of your best friend. It's wonderful to feel so deeply inspired by a world that feels so deeply familiar."
Dar Williams, Singer-songwriter, and author of What I Found in 1,000 Towns
"Like Da Vinci, Caryn is in love with the world, knows its many ways, excels at all she does, and captures the hidden emotion behind what she studies. My world opens up, when I read these. Yours will too."
Kevin Rabas, Poet Laureate of Kansas, 2017-2019, All That Jazz
"Enter the amazing world of genius writer Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg as she ruminates, rejoices, revels, and reflects. Her book Everyday Magic is a passport to her remarkable life as mother, wife, daughter-in-law, friend, professor, community leader, and writer. The author's Wells Overlook homestead becomes as familiar as my kitchen table when I read scenes from her rocket-speed life."
Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2007-2009, author of Turtle's Beating Heart
"It's not just a body, it's an adventure," is the title of one of Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg's essays on the exceptionality of the everyday. This body of work is an adventure-not necessarily the roller-coaster-ride variety, but one of the turning of the moments of a life into opportunities for introspection, for sharing, for recognition that this instant in time is truly meaningful and lovely and deserving of notice."
Roy Beckemeyer, author of Music I Once Could Dance To
"'Listening to another means learning a new language, ' writes Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. This former poet-laureate of Kansas is absolutely present in the world. This book is an invitation to join her in a celebration of mundane moments illuminated by her loving presence. Wrap yourself in a warm embrace of words."
Sherry Reiter, PhD, Director of The Creative Righting Center, and Poetry Therapy pioneer
"Each piece is a window into a room in the author's mind, each so enticing that I wanted to see the next room, and the next. This house is a well-lived-in home, filled with compassion, honesty, wit and humility."
Doug Lipman, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award for storytelling, National Storytelling Network
"With an open heart and often with sly humor, Caryn shares stories of bad vacations, burritos, family, faith, navigating a difficult childhood, and the passing of people dear to her. In these graceful essays I marvel, as always, at Caryn's skill with language. Words are in her care and her command."
Cheryl Unruh, author of Flyover People: Life on the Ground in a Rectangular State
About the Author: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of two dozen books, including, Miriam's Well, a novel, and Following the Curve, a collection of embodied poetry. Her previous work includes The Divorce Girl, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet, a bioregional memoir on cancer and community; and five poetry collections, including the award-winning Chasing Weather: Tornadoes, Tempests, and Thunderous Skies in Word and Image with weather chaser/photographer Stephen Locke. Founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College where she teaches, Mirriam-Goldberg also leads writing workshops widely, particularly for people living with serious illness and their caregivers. With singer Kelley Hunt, she co-leads Brave Voice writing and singing retreats.
