Body & Soul ― Stories for Skeptics and Seekers

Body & Soul: Stories for Skeptics and Seekers is a spiritual journey through experiences that can be liberating but also awkward and sometimes even dangerous, because women are so often excluded from conversations about spirituality. Liberation comes with breaking that age-old code of silence to talk about the messiness of faith, practice, religion and ceremony, to confess our sublimely unconventional modes of spiritual yearning. The writers in this volume, including Sharon Bala, Carleigh Baker, Eufemia Fantetti, Sue Goyette, K.D. Miller, Zarqa Nawaz, Alison Pick, Sigal Samuel, Ayelet Tsabari, Betsy Warland and others, many from marginalized or misunderstood communities, are speaking out so that others will speak up. Enough of fear. Enough of hiding out, tongue-tied. It’s time for joy, humanity and frankness. It’s time to step up and lead—not by running after answers, but by asking caring, daring questions. It’s time for body and soul.

Susan Scott is the author of TEMPLE IN A TEAPOT and a memoir-in-progress, SAINTED DIRT: RECKONINGS WITH LAND, LANGUAGE, FAMILY AND IMPERFECT TEAWARE. As a community builder, she works with artists, scholars and activists to release powerful, transgressive stories that inspire grassroots change and healing. As THE NEW QUARTERLY's non-fiction editor, she directs Write on the French River Creative Writing Retreat and serves as associate director of the Wild Writers Literary Festival. Susan has lived in Toronto, Montreal and in towns and cities across the US. She makes her home in Waterloo, Ontario, on the Haldimand Tract, in the heart of the Great Lakes basin.