Together We Are Normal

Together We Are Normal is a memoir written by Kathryn Scheldt and her partner, John Dowdney.

According to Frye Gaillard, writer-in-residence at the University of South Alabama, "It is the story of a love that flourished and flamed out against the turbulent, turned-on backdrop of the 1960s and 1970s, and then rekindled in a late-life second chance that many of us might envy.

"Kathryn and John each share the story in their own particular voices. Searingly honest, graceful, and resonant."

Kathryn Aurelia Scheldt, author, is an internationally acclaimed songwriter and recording artist with seven CDs of original songs. Her published books are: The Guitar Songbook for Music Therapy, Six Neapolitan Songs for the Classic Guitar, and The Quilt and the Poetry of Alabama Music. A former music professor (Queens University of Charlotte, University of South Alabama), Scheldt holds a master's degree in music. Her performances include Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Ernest Tubb Midnight Jamboree, Southern Festival of Books, Alabama Writers Forum, and Thacker Mountain Radio. Her song "Last Shrimp Boat" anchored the soundtrack for In the Path of the Storms, an Emmy-winning documentary.

John Heyward Dowdney, first-time author, springs from illustrious literary and historical giants. On his paternal side: The Edwin Emerson Family Papers; Abraham Dowdney, representative from New York; and Edward Fitzgerald, British author and translator of The Rubyait of Omar Khayyam. Dowdney is a descendant of Thomas Heyward, Jr., South Carolina's signer of the Declaration of Independence; and his maternal lineage also boasts DuBose Heyward, author of Porgy and The Country Bunny. Dowdney attended Trinity School in Manhattan and grad- uated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor's degree in English literature. He spent several years in the Peace Corps in West Africa followed by twenty-five years in corporate America. When he retreated from the corporate tower, he be- came a gardener on one of South Carolina's sea islands.