Ark
“None of us is likely to forget the ‘virustime,’ but feisty, funny, resourceful, creative Arden (along with her quirky family and motley crew of rescue dogs) is a comforting and inspiring reminder that the worst of times can bring out the best in us. Ark will help young readers see how they, too, kindled their own light to find their way through a dark time.” (Review by Lauren Wolk, author of Echo Mountain). 11-year-old Arden thinks the world has ended when her family moves to a small backyard guesthouse, built like a wooden boat. The worst part: it’s not big enough for their dog to come along. Things get even worse when her best friend moves away and a pandemic shuts school. As neighbors leave town and get sick, their pets are left behind, and Arden becomes the safe-keeper of all the abandoned animals. When the pandemic touches home, Arden must use all her creativity and courage to help those she loves—family, friends, and dogs!
Kirkus Reviews on Ark: read here.
Harvardwood Interview on Ark: read here.
Shepherd List of Best Books about living big in small spaces: read here.
Video of Heidi Kraay’s early work adapting Ark for stage: view here.
Edit Your Life
In this beautiful call to examine and edit our lives, writer Elisabeth Sharp McKetta shares eight simple ways to cut through the clutter, drama, and overwhelm of modern life to live with more intention and joy. Inspired by her own experiments with reprioritizing, tiny house living, and finding the right balance of work and family time, Edit Your Life brings together personal narrative and practical takeaway, with inspiring results.
TEDx Talk that inspired the book: view here.
Retirement Wisdom podcast: listen here.
Sustainable Minimalists interview: listen here.
Laura Vanderkam’s Before Breakfast: listen here and here.
Shepherd List of Best Books to inspire you: read here.
Happy Hour with Jonna and Keryl interview: listen here.
Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire guest blog: read here.
Tools for Nomads interview with Thom Pollard: listen here.
Meetup Live: Spring Cleaning for Year-Round Happiness: view here.
Awake with Asashoryu and Other Essays
“The essayist Elisabeth McKetta is a wonderful storyteller who takes us generously into her life, which always seems initially off-balance, full of falls, disappointments and reversals, and yet, in the end, joyous. Her collection is humane, amusing, touching and very satisfying.” (Review by Phillip Lopate, author of To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction). 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.
Harvard Magazine Interview on mythic memoir: read here.
Oxonian Review excerpt of the essay “Toil”: read here.
MING Studios recording of title essay: listen here.
Rediscovered Book interview with Laura Delaney: view here.
Opening Night Review: view here.
Shepherd List of Best memoirs with myth: read here.
She Never Told Me About the Ocean
“She Never Told Me About the Ocean is a heroine’s journey through forgiveness, birth and rebirth, all the while treading the line between honoring the dead and feeling paralyzed by them. McKetta has offered us a complicated portrait of mothers and daughters, cupped inside one another like nesting dolls.” (Review by Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha). Told by four women whose stories nest together, She Never Told Me About the Ocean is an epic about a rite of passage that all humans undergo and none remember: birth.
PBS Mother’s Day Interview: watch here.
Happiness Quotient Interview: listen here.
LitReader Notes: read here.
Jana & Jo Interview: read here.
Majestic Wisdom interview: listen here.
Shepherd List of best fairy tales for adults: read here.
6-minute excerpt: listen below.
What Doesn’t Kill Her
What Doesn’t Kill Her: Women’s Stories of Resilience is a collection of sixty triumphant survival stories written by a diverse array of women. These stories feature culturally relevant topics such as advocating for healthcare, surviving sexual assault, reconciling female genital mutilation, working in the sex industry, overcoming breast cancer, motherhood after miscarriage, losing a husband in Afghanistan, and transitioning from male to female. Gloria Steinem wrote of this collection: “When someone is ill, many old cultures say that they have lost their story. I believe that reading the stories in What Doesn’t Kill Her will help each of us to trust and tell our own.”
Echoes Media Interview: listen here.
Opening Night Review: read here.
Fear of the Beast
Fear of the Beast, the second in a series of collaborative art-poetry books by Elisabeth McKetta and Troy Passey, looks at the idea of the animal—both self and other, human and humane—and examines how our collective fear and longing shapes our perceptions. Like any good book about beasts, our book is intended both for children and for adults. It has been adapted into the short film “Bones of the Beast.”
“Bones of the Beast”: view here.
We Live in Boise
“We live in Boise. A vibrant, bustling little city. And now there is finally a children’s picture book that does it some justice. Written almost like a love letter, this little book is a deeply sweet and thoughtful tribute to the city and what makes it home.” (Review by Rediscovered Books.) This book explores Boise through the eyes of its children as they grow, make friends, feed elk, paddle rivers, and become part of this community.
NPR Interview: listen here.
Energy: The Life of John J. McKetta Jr.
Energy tells the life of Dr. John J. McKetta Jr., a first-generation Ukrainian American coal miner who worked his way up from the mines to become the world’s foremost energy expert, a university dean, an encyclopedia editor, and one of the most widely known and respected professors in his field. In this biography, granddaughter Elisabeth Sharp McKetta retraces Dr. McKetta’s path to becoming the godfather of modern chemical engineering.
Award-winning short film: view here.
The Message interview: view here.
Fear of the Deep
The first book-length collaboration between author Elisabeth Sharp McKetta and artist Troy Passey, Fear of the Deep joins the atmospheric artwork of Passey with fifty poetic fragments by McKetta, resulting in limited edition books on the theme of the ocean and how words become lifeboats. We will donate 10% of proceeds to Suicide Prevention Action Network of Idaho. Read reviews in the Idaho Statesman and Boise Weekly.
Poetry for Strangers
Since its inception, the blog Poetry for Strangers has changed hundreds of people’s relationship with poetry, mobilizing poets and non-poets alike to share their writing on an eclectic array of weekly words. Now in book form, these fifty poems—each inspired by a weekly word given to the author by a stranger—are a testament to the small moments of beauty in every ordinary life.
The Creative Year: 52 Workshops for Writers
Most writers struggle with three things: how to get started, how to improve, and what to do with a piece of writing once it’s finished. The Creative Year: 52 Workshops for Writers is a guidebook that illuminates a path for all three. Each workshop contains three parts: process, prompt, and venue. Used together, these techniques provide the scaffolding for a sustainable, fulfilling writing life.
The Fairy Tales Mammals Tell
Fairy tale scholar Maria Tatar has written of The Fairy Tales Mammals Tell, “Elisabeth McKetta taps fairy tales, and, presto, they transform themselves into living things that reach out and tug at us, reminding us of the exquisite fragility in ‘once upon a time.’”