We are thrilled to welcome Katherine May to the Skylark virtual author series! Katherine is the author of Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times - and never was there a more timely book published. Several of us have been lucky enough to have already read it, we all fell head over heels in love with it. It’s a deeply personal, quietly beautiful book, written with grace and immense thoughtfulness. We all go through difficult times; by mulling over her responses to her own misfortunes, the author offers some insight as to how we might all think differently about low points in our lives. It’s an instructive, inspiring, and ultimately profoundly hopeful book.
The event takes place on Thursday, December 3 - please note the earlier start time of 5:00 p.m., CST. (Katherine lives in England and we will already be keeping her up way past her bedtime!!) To register for the event, please click here.
Katherine May is a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. Her journalism and essays have appeared in a range of publications including The Times (London), Good Housekeeping, and Cosmopolitan. She lives by the sea in Whitstable, England and is an avid lover of the outdoors.
About Wintering: Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.
A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May's story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.
Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.
