About
the Author
Kerry L. Malawista
One of my earliest memories are of weekend mornings going to work with my dad in his big red truck. Off we drove to a nearby New Jersey neighborhood, where we’d stroll door to door putting cards in mailboxes, the words “Leddy Siding” brightly festooned across the flyers. There we were in the truck, singing along with the radio and sleuthing out whodunnit in the latest Nancy Drew series.
When I ran out of books to chat about, Dad would ask, “Did you have any good dreams last night?” Dreams, he told me, also held hidden clues. Together we cracked the code of these nighttime visions. I had no idea how this working-class man, who had not gotten past high school and never read a book as far as I could tell, not only understood the meaning of dreams but also took mine seriously.
One Saturday, Bridge Over Troubled Water played on the AM radio. I was gripped by each and every word. It took my breath away to discover a marvelous secret, that the bridge meant something more—a friend who helps you over hard times. Lyrics, like dreams, hold deeper meanings and connect you to others.
In time, sitting side by side with my dad while the music played, I began to understand the power that lay beneath and within words, setting me on a path to a career as a psychoanalyst and then a writer.
Writing and psychotherapy share something essential: they are a form of sleuthing. Each starts by grappling with a real-life puzzle or conflict, something to understand. As the questions deepen in texture and tone, I take pen to pad. Initially there is no editing, revising, or obsessing over language. The goal is to get the words down on paper, knowing that if I sweat the details I’ll lose the essence of the story.
Then the fun begins. What most writers call revising, I think of as detective work. Like Sherlock Holmes I pick up my magnifying glass to observe, deduce, and collect evidence. The smells, sounds, tastes, and dialogue I discover or invent are the DNA of the characters.
Regal House/Fitzroy Books publication of Meet the Moon, long listed for the Kraken Prize, brings me back to my first love—novels.
I moved to Potomac, Maryland, where I live with my husband Alan and where we raised our four children. While I no longer drive around in a red truck or read Nancy Drew, I still roll down my windows and sing out loud when my favorite songs come on the radio.
Author Biography
Kerry L. Malawista, PhD is a writer and psychoanalyst in Potomac, MD. She is co-chair of New Directions in Writing and founder of the recent project The Things They Carry – offering virtual writing workshops for healthcare and frontline workers. Her essays have appeared nationally in newspapers, magazines and literary journals including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, Zone 3, Washingtonian Magazine, The Huffington Post, Bethesda Magazine, Arlington Magazine, The Account Magazine, and Delmarva Review, which nominated her for a Pushcart Prize. She is the co-author of Wearing my Tutu to Analysis and Other Stories (2011), The Therapist in Mourning: From the Faraway Nearby (2013), both published by Columbia University Press, and Who’s Behind the Couch (2017) published by Routledge Press. Stories From the Couch, and When the Garden Isn’t Eden: More Psychoanalytic Concepts from Life will be published by Columbia University Press spring 2022 and her novel, Meet the Moon will be released, September 2022 with Regal House Publishing.
Meet the Moon is the story of a young girl trying to make sense of the most devastating loss imaginable. But here’s the thing: I read this novel of heartbreaking tragedy and came away uplifted. Kerry Malawista writes so beautifully - with humor, insight, and honesty - that you can’t help feeling buoyed in the face of life’s hardest hits, especially when, on those rare occasions, tragedy is transcended into heightened understanding, empathy and a stronger sense of self.”— Dan Barber, The Third Plate