Press kit for Facing Fear
Facing Fear ordering page | Press release | Blurbs | Bio | Additional info | Cover image
Facing Fear Press Release: Part memoir, part journalism, Facing Fear traces Strasser’s attempt to understand the nature of fear and anxiety and to regain control of a life threatened by a fatal disease. After the presidential campaign and election in 2004, Judith Strasser set out to investigate the nature of fear and its widespread use as a political campaign strategy. After flying to Seattle to conduct research for her study of political fear, Strasser returned home to a diagnosis of stomach cancer. Facing Fear traces Strasser’s attempt to understand the nature of fear and anxiety and to regain control of a life threatened by a fatal disease. Part memoir, part journalism, and all heart, her book explores our biological and psychological responses to fearful events, examines the culture of fear in which we live, and suggests ways in which we, both as individuals and as members of a community, can overcome our anxieties and face our fears with courage and hope. “Facing Fear offers an abundance of insights without once faltering into self-help clichés. Instead, Strasser takes us with her, sharing her hard-won knowledge and guiding us along a precarious path that ends in hope.”—Jesse Lee Kercheval, author of The Alice Stories “I was reading Judith Strasser’s brilliant examination of the cross-section between violence and hatred during the same week that a gunman who wanted to kill liberals and homosexuals attacked a children’s show at a Unitarian meeting house in Tennessee. We live in tenuous times when unspeakable crimes are committed. But those crimes are not unexplainable—at least not for those in possession of Strasser’s compelling consideration of our difficult circumstances and prospects for escaping them.”—John Nichols, correspondent for The Nation Judith Strasser (1944-2009) was the author of a memoir, Black Eye, and two poetry collections: The Reason/Unreason Project, which won the Lewis-Clark Press Expedition Award, and Sand Island Succession: Poems of the Apostles. She was formerly a senior producer and interviewer for To the Best of Our Knowledge, a nationally syndicated public radio show. At the time of her death she maintained a blog, In Lieu of Speech, in which she discussed her life and her health. Additional information Borderland Books is an independent publisher distributed by the UW Press. Designed by Ken Crocker and printed by Worzalla Press, these works are published in the tradition of art and craft printing. For more information, see www.borderlandbooks.net Of related interest: Black Eye: Escaping a Marriage, Writing a Life by Judith Strasser Seventeen years after she married, Judith Strasser escaped her emotionally and physically abusive husband and sought a better way to live. In the process, Strasser rediscovered what she had suppressed through that long span of time: exceptional strength and a passion for writing. “Judith Strasser has written an unflinching, unsparing, un-put-down-able diary of a woman's slow tumble to health, freedom, and even joy, against terrifying odds. Black Eye is the kind of book we wish no one had to write, but which we are compelled to read.”—Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean For more information, in addition to this press kit, contact our publicity department, (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu |
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