reader & writer
“I put on my pajamas and bathrobe and my old hunting hat, and started writing the composition….” ~ Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
New from Rain Mountain Press
“Sarah McElwain brings the bad old East Village of the nineties totally alive again – sights, sounds, culture, and more than that, its very soul. Filtered through the eyes of a teenage girl growing up there, in a story that is wry and bittersweet.”
~ Jonathan Stone, author of Moving Day and The Prison Minyan
“Before the dark side of the Internet and TikTok, there were the false promises of TV and the tabloids. Part love affair, part loss of innocence, part plight of a teenage girl immersed in survival, BORN LUCKY invites the reader into the tragic, naive truth about how popular culture devours teenage girls.”
~ Susannah Marren, author of Maribelle’s Shadow
writing
The Circus Shakespearius
by Tim Hardin & Sarah McElwain
(Warning this book contains clowns)
Classically trained Shakespearean actors decide to send up the greatest Elizabethan plays in a free-spirited traveling circus.
Saying Grace
Blessings for the Family Table
edited by Sarah McElwain * illustrations by David Dean
A collection of table blessings that include a wide range of sentiments, from the amusing and heartfelt to the sacred.
To the Happy Couple
Creating a Great Wedding Toast with Style
by Sarah McElwain * illustrations by Diana Marye
How to write & deliver a great wedding toast, including rehearsal dinners, showers and bachelor parties.
essays & fiction
“Fingertips Part Three With Thanks to Stevie Wonder”
The Art of Touch, University of Georgia Press, 2023. Edited by Joan Schweighardt & Faye Rapoport DesPre
“Spike”
Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Brazen words by witty dames. Everything true. More or less.
Edited by Rebecca Johnson & Bex O’Brian
“The Crossing Guard”
Works Progress, A little Substack for big fiction. Edited by Mark Chiusano & Scott Chiusano
“The Adventures of God”
Speakeasy #5, The Heresy Press Newsletter.
Edited by Bernard Schweizer
reading
about me
I teach an online Memoir Over-50 Class at Pulitzer-prize winning poet Philip Schultz’s Writers Studio.
My essay, “”Fingertips Part Three with Thanks to Stevie Wonder,” in The Art of Touch is about ten years of teaching yoga to the blind.
As graphic designer, designing books remains my first love.
Thank you to the NYPL for hundreds of books, returned almost always on time.