From Golden Foothills Press with co-editors Thelma Reyna, Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., Johanna Shapiro

After the once-in-a-century invasion of the coronavirus hit the United States in 2020, our nation was weary and battered, with schools, churches, public places shut down and the economy sputtering. In the second year of the COVID-19 outbreak, the heroism and devotion of U.S. healthcare workers stood strong-- despite burnout, despite assaults by virus-deniers, anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, despite purveyors of misinformation that hobbled our nation’s recovery. In this ground-breaking anthology, 26 poets and essayists—physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, private caregivers, holistic practitioners, medical school students, and a hospital chaplain—share their personal experiences navigating the pandemic and our changed lives, tending to patients, dealing with loss, uncertainty, grief, and isolation, surviving in a world turned topsy-turvy, continuing the fight to save lives through resilience, selflessness, and the eternal flame of hope.

Here, in this vital anthology, we hear the voices of those who have done the most to try to heal us and see us through this pandemic…as we learn how the health care workers survived and learned to walk the halls of hospitals with some vestige of hope again…A collective trauma: in essence, that is what this volume bears witness to and gives us a vision of healing..

 – Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., National Award-Winning Poet