Awake with Asashoryu and Other Essays

"Humane, amusing, touching, and very satisfying."―Phillip Lopate, author of To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“Captivating and evocative and original.”―Grace Dane Mazur, author of The Garden Party

“In the wise and funny essays that make up Awake with Asashoryu, Elisabeth Sharp McKetta asks vital questions about what it means to forge an adult life of one’s own.”―Lynn C. Miller, author of The Unmasking and The Day After Death

At the heart of every essay in Elisabeth Sharp McKetta’s lively collection is the same question: How does one grow up without losing oneself? McKetta braids deceptively simple stories of her own life with the rich undercurrent of familiar childhood tales to reveal things both personal and universal and as close to the truth as possible.

Whether she is spending sleepless nights watching the sumo wrestler Asashoryu with her father, settling into a new life in a fishing hamlet in Cornwall, struggling with a beloved and ultimately untrainable corgi named Goblin, or emerging from a night in the woods rethinking who she might be, McKetta’s essays sparkle and twist round and about—funny and insightful and compelling.

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta grew up in Austin, Texas and holds literature degrees from Harvard, Georgetown, and the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches writing for the Harvard Extension School and the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. She is the author of nine books including She Never Told Me About the Ocean (Paul Dry Books), Poetry for Strangers Vols. I and II, and The Fairy Tales Mammals Tell. Visit elisabethsharpmcketta.com to learn more.