Wake Up Laughing: A Spiritual Autobiography

by Pat Schneider

New paperback edition! Memoir.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

197 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

(Please note that I do not use Goodreads actively: my blog posts here are updated automatically from my website. If you would like to get in touch with me, please visit www.patschneider.com. Thank you.)

I am a writer of poetry, plays, libretti and non-fiction, and I am the founder of Amherst Writers and Artists. For thirty-four years I have taught writing in Massachusetts and around the world.

My two best-known books are about writing, both from Oxford University Press. My new book, HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN: WRITING AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE, offers seventeen chapters that engage the connection between writing and spirituality, regardless of one’s religious tradition or one’s level of expertise in writing. Chapter one takes Einstein’s statement, “There is a spirit,” as inspiration, and the book then moves through chapters that explore what to do with one’s own tradition -- tradition in writing and tradition in religions – as well as “The Dark Night of the Soul,” “Forgiving,” “Being Forgiven,” “The Body,” “Freedom,” and ending with “Joy.” The Library Journal review from February, 2013 says this: “Her book will have wide appeal to both amateur and seasoned writers and spiritual seekers whether or not tied to any tradition. The book is also useful as a tool for growth through reflection and writing. Highly recommended.”

My earlier book, WRITING ALONE AND WITH OTHERS, offers guidance and help to the writer working alone, and in the second half details the Amherst Writers & Artists method of creative writing workshops and writing groups. It is used widely and internationally in classrooms and independent workshops as a method that develops the craft of writing without doing harm to one’s original voice. The method it describes is also widely used as a tool for the empowerment of under-served populations, in prisons, shelters, and with youth-at-risk.

Reviews

[Deborah Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just wow.

This may be the best of my recent memoir binge.

I came to this because I am slowly working my way through Schneider's How the Light Gets In, and felt I needed more of the backstory to which she often refers.

What a treat. Schneider is a firm believer in using lots of sensory detail as a way in to the deeper truths of human experience, and it makes her writing completely compelling and unputdownable. It doesn't hurt that she's had an extraordinary, multifaceted life. And that she's just plain good company.

[Phyllis Cole-Dai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful testimony to an ever-widening sense of mystery, if only we'll pay attention. The synchronicities in the author's journey are astounding and profoundly meaningful. The author weaves narrative, poetry and journal entries. The reader engages at multiple levels. Highly recommended.

[Renée Roehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a magical soul journey woven like a dream as it moves through time & through place within & without in a gorgeous existential crisis of faith. It IS a memoir but reads like a longer narrative poem with distinct lyrical moments.

It's not all rainbows though as Schneider's childhood was less than ideal in impoverishment of the body but also a famine cage of her spirit. I don't know how she kept the vital coal of her Self breathing but she did.

There were certain moments of the early journey to Ireland that I felt the book being a tad self-indulgent and the story dragged a bit. Don't let that stop you from enjoying this potent book though.

Here's a taste:

"...I'm filled with laughter again--deep inside, where it cannot bubble up to the surface, but effervesces (is there such a word?) in the dark beneath articulation, as wine must do, in the making, in a dark cellar--bright suns of summer's dandelions making ready to rise under the cork, under the floor of daily life, in the root-vegetable/wine cellar of the unconscious."

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread this book for the second time. Found it even more engaging than when I first read it 15 years ago. A marvelous spiritual autobiography. Written with such depth of understanding as well as heart. The story of her childhood in extreme poverty and her retracing of her childhood landscape physically and emotionally. Very moving.

[Susannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! Inspiring, deeply personal, sincere & touching. Wonderfully honest book.