{"title":"Melissa Pritchard","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"solemn-pleasure-book-melissa-pritchard-9781934137963","title":"A Solemn Pleasure","description":"Essays in this collection have been recently and prominently published: “Still God Helps You: Memories of a Sudanese Child Slave,” first published in Wilson Quarterly (2013), was a Byliner exclusive, recognized by The Atlantic as one of the year’s “Fantastic Pieces of Journalism,” and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. “Circle of Friends” was published in Amtrak’s Arrive magazine (July\/August 2014). “A Solemn Pleasure” appeared in the David Shields\/Bradford Morrow anthology The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death. “Finding Ashton” and an excerpt from “Doxology” appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine.  Melissa Pritchard is a prolific writer whose fiction and nonfiction has been anthologized in over fifteen books and appeared in over sixty literary journals. She is also an award-winning teacher of creative writing at Arizona State University, and has amassed a devoted following among her students.  Pritchard’s extraordinary storytelling skills, developed as a fiction writer, lend themselves perfectly to conveying the stories of her travels, spiritual pursuits, historical research, and empathy for the people who have crossed her path.    Inaugural book in Bellevue Literary Press’ new The Art of the Essay series, with a Foreword by bestselling novelist and Harvard University Director of Creative Writing Bret Anthony Johnston.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49592290607377,"sku":"GOR009392406","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50585828163857,"sku":"CIN1934137960VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51054072234257,"sku":"NIN9781934137963","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1934137960.jpg?v=1750932725"},{"product_id":"instinct-for-bliss-book-melissa-pritchard-9780944072790","title":"The Instinct for Bliss","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis volume examines ten economically advanced countries in Europe and Asia that have experienced different levels of fertility decline. It offers readers a cross-country perspective on the causes and consequences of low birth rates and the different policy responses to this worrying trend.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe countries examined are not only diverse geographically, historically, and culturally, but also have different policies and institutions in place. They include six very-low-fertility countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Taiwan) and four that have close to replacement-level fertility (United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, and France). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlthough fertility has gone down in all these countries over the past 50 years, the chapters examine the institutional, policy, and cultural factors that have led some countries to have much lower fertility rates than others. In addition, the final chapter provides a cross-country comparison of individual perceptions about obs\u003c\/p\u003etacles to fertility, based on survey data, and government support for families. This broad overview, along with a general introduction, helps put the specific country papers in context. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs birth rates continue to decline, there is increasing concern about the fate of social welfare systems, including healthcare and programs for the elderly. This book will help readers to better understand the root causes of such problems with its insightful discussion on how a country's institutions, policies, and culture shape fertility trends and levels.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49787061960977,"sku":"CIN0944072798G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50372735959313,"sku":"CIN0944072798VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51334733267217,"sku":"CIN0944072798A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0944072798.jpg?v=1751203590"},{"product_id":"disappearing-ingenue-book-melissa-pritchard-9780385503037","title":"Disappearing Ingenue","description":"This wildly imaginative collection presents the misadventures of unlikely heroine Eleanor Stoddard as she tries to lead an exemplary life but finds that things just keep going awry. In the summer after sixth grade, she dreams of being as courageous as Anne Frank. As a teenager, her sudden devotion to Catholicism coincides with her crush on a nun. As a suburban housewife who suspects her husband of having an affair, she imitates Nancy Drew to try to solve her own personal mystery. And as a middle-aged woman, she embarks on a trek through Central America accompanied by a rescued laboratory gorilla. While Eleanor makes her way through a whirlwind of adventures with life and love in which she is constantly reinventing her identity and rethinking her priorities, she manages to become a first-rate student, a published poet, and a loyal mother. Each story offers a glimpse into her familiar and charmingly odd journey, and she comes hilariously to life in these disarming tales.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49926553141521,"sku":"CIN0385503032G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49933725794577,"sku":"CIN0385503032VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0385503032.jpg?v=1751292392"},{"product_id":"flight-of-the-wild-swan-book-melissa-pritchard-9781954276215","title":"Flight of the Wild Swan","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eA majestic novel of Florence Nightingale, whose courage, self-confidence, and resilience transformed nursing and the role of women in medicine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSweeping yet intimate, \u003ci\u003eFlight of the Wild Swan\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of Florence Nightingale, a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose humanity has been obscured beneath the iconic weight of legend. From adolescence, Nightingale was determined to fulfill her life's calling to serve the sick and suffering. Overcoming Victorian hierarchies, familial expectations, patriarchal resistance, and her own illness, she used her hard-won acclaim as a battlefield nurse to bring the profession out of its shadowy, disreputable status and elevate nursing to a skilled practice and compassionate art.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn lush, lyrical detail, Melissa Pritchard reveals Nightingale as a rebel who wouldn't relent--one whose extraordinary life offers a grand lesson in inspired will.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50130231853329,"sku":"CIN1954276214G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50185457533201,"sku":"CIN1954276214VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50990867611921,"sku":"NIN9781954276215","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1954276214.jpg?v=1751125434"},{"product_id":"palmerino-book-melissa-pritchard-9781934137680","title":"Palmerino","description":"O, The Oprah Magazine “Title to Pick Up Now”  American Library Association “Over the Rainbow List” selection  Welcome to Palmerino, the British enclave in rural Italy where Violet Paget, known to the world by her pen name and male persona, Vernon Lee, held court. In imagining the real life of this brilliant, lesbian polymath known for her chilling supernatural stories, Melissa Pritchard creates a multilayered tale in which the dead writer inhabits the heart and mind of her lonely, modern-day biographer.  Positing the art of biography as an act of resurrection and possession, this novel brings to life a vividly detailed, subtly erotic tale about secret loves and the fascinating artists and intellectuals—Oscar Wilde, John Singer Sargent, Henry James, Robert Browning, Bernard Berenson—who challenged and inspired each other during an age of repression.  Melissa Pritchard is the author of eight books of fiction, including The Odditorium, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. Among other honors, her books have received the Flannery O'Connor, Janet Heidinger Kafka, and Carl Sandburg awards, and two of her short fiction collections were New York Times Notable Book and Editors’ Choice selections.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50393794969873,"sku":"CIN1934137685G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51054055686417,"sku":"NIN9781934137680","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52327831961873,"sku":"CIN1934137685VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1934137685.jpg?v=1750727515"},{"product_id":"odditorium-book-melissa-pritchard-9781934137376","title":"The Odditorium","description":"O, The Oprah Magazine \"Title to Pick Up Now\" \u0026amp; Oprah.com Book of the Week  San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year Library Journal Best Stories Collection of the Year  \"Emotionally rich.\" --New York Times  \"Ambitious, lush and even thrilling.\" --Los Angeles Times  \"Ripping good yarns.\" --Minneapolis Star Tribune  \"The stories in this strange and original collection bend genres--horror, mystery, Western--into wondrous new shapes.\" --O, The Oprah Magazine  In each of these eight lyrical and baroque tales, Melissa Pritchard transports readers into spine-tingling milieus that range from the astounding realm of Robert LeRoy Ripley's \"odditoriums\" to the courtyard where Edgar Allan Poe once played as a child. Whether she is setting the famed figures of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, including Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull, against the real, genocidal history of the American West, or contrasting the luxurious hotel where British writer Somerset Maugham stayed with the modern-day brothels of India, her stories illuminate the many ways history and architecture exert powerful forces upon human consciousness. Melissa Pritchard is a Flannery O'Connor, Janet Heidinger Kafka, and Carl Sandburg award-winning author whose previous short fiction collections were New York Times Notable Book and Editors' Choice selections. 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