New Releases by Sara Ryan

A funny and heartfelt LGBTQIA+ middle grade novel set against the backdrop of family drama and a library funding campaign in a small town. Alex Eager lives in Faillin, OR with her grandmother, a retired librarian. Life should be great for Alex, since she finally worked up the courage to ask her best friend PJ if they could be more than friends and she said yes. But their new relationship will have to be long distance, because PJ is moving. On top of that, Alex is worried that something is wrong with her increasingly forgetful grandmother. And to make matters worse, Faillin is holding a referendum on library funding, and things aren’t looking good. Will anything good for Alex ever last? Mountain Upside Down is a beautifully crafted story of a thirteen-year-old girl finding her place in her family and her community. It’s a queer-positive story that doesn’t center coming out. It’s a story of a library’s role in a community that doesn’t feature book banning. And it’s a story of long-held family secrets and resentment that focuses not on final resolution but learning how to communicate again.

This empirically grounded book presents a critical, interdisciplinary perspective on social and cultural issues related to the health and wellbeing of people with learning disabilities. Through an exploration of healthcare, love and intimacy, pregnancy and childbirth, housing, employment and food the book highlights the enduringly impoverished lives and premature deaths people labelled with learning disabilities experience globally and suggests that such structural violence amounts to social murder. Through the lens of critical disability studies, the book links the debates around learning disabilities to the larger framework of deinstitutionalisation. It takes a closer look at the label “learning disability”, which remains associated with stigma and shame, and advances comprehension of how and why it is that the lives of this group of people are systematically constrained and shortened. The book further identifies recommendations that can be utilised for challenging and changing these circumstances. It is essential reading for those involved in social and cultural issues related to the lives of people with learning disabilities, and also beneficial for advanced students in sociology, anthropology, psychology, allied health sciences and other related disciplines. It will also be valuable for researchers and health and social care professionals seeking critical insights about their work.

After moving to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, poet Sara Ryan found herself immersed in the isolated spaces of the North: the cold places that never thawed, the bleak expanses of snow. These poems have teeth, bones, and blood—they clack and bruise and make loud sounds. They interrogate self-preservation, familial history, extinction, taxidermy, and animal and female bodies. In between these lines, in warm places where blood collects, animals stay hidden and hunted, a girl looks loneliness dead in the eye, and wolves come out of the woods to run across the frozen water of Lake Superior.

Find some pockets of brilliance for your practice! Insights and inspiration from families of learning disabled people, who share their lives, challenges and wishes. Discover what sorts of help will really help the people you support.

A personal account from the mother of Connor Sparrowhawk, a teenager with autism and epilepsy, who died due to neglect while in a specialist NHS unit. After Connor's death, Dr Sara Ryan started the #JusticeforLB campaign, which uncovered a wider failure by the NHS to appropriately care for people with learning difficulties.

This book invites women of all ages into a conversation that challenges the pervasive lie of “never good enough.” This common subtext of modern life undermines a woman’s appreciation of her own inherent beauty and goodness. The authors recommend 8 Radical Moves that women can make, alone or ideally in the good company of other women, to take on this challenge, to deepen this conversation. The Moves are radical because they aim directly at the center of a woman’s being, the inner space of her true nature, her basic goodness, rather than because they require any extreme actions. Nonetheless, the conviction that “never good enough” is a lie requires more than lip service. The authors guide readers in identifying the courage, strength and love they already possess, but habitually deny, to embrace and live by this conviction of self respect, day to day in mind, body and heart. They further encourage women to make this stand with and in the presence of other women to increase everybody’s likelihood for success. Regina Sara Ryan, author of numerous books in wellness, women’s studies and spirituality (Wellness Workbook; Woman Awake; Igniting the Inner Life) is an elder in her seventies. Shinay Tredeau, a yoga teacher, lifestyle coach, dancer and emerging writer is a “millennial” in her twenties. Together, they bring to this warm and personal treatment a synergy of years of experience in contemplative spiritual practice and dynamic body discipline. Their message is addressed to their sisters, mothers, friends and students, of all ages; to any who suffer from the dis-ease of self-hatred in some form. Each of the 8 Radical Moves provides a slightly different access to clearer self-understanding, leading to self-compassion. For some, the Move to “Inhabit Your Body” will be key to claiming (or reclaiming) a more loving relationship with themselves. For others, the Move called “Learn to Fly” will be just the encouragement needed to refine a spiritual search. Other topics include: • the danger of comparisons with other women • the need to face dark emotions, with compassion • the power of friendship in the quest for self-acceptance • the use of journal writing to articulate developing truth • gratitude as a way of life. This straightforward and challenging narrative is filled with dozens of personal stories, making it ideal for women’s groups and book clubs to study and practice.

Lives intersect in the most unexpected ways when teenagers Anne and Lewis cross paths at an estate sale in sleepy Failin, Oregon. Failin was once a thriving logging community. Now the town's businesses are crumbling, its citizens bitter and disaffected. Anne and Lewis refuse to succumb to the fate of the older generation as they discover—together—the secrets of their hometown and their own families. * From award-winning creators Sara Ryan Carla Speed McNeil (Finder)! "[Bad Houses] is the best graphic novel I've read all year. Superbly observed, exquisitely drawn, with a sharp bite and a real human pulse. Magnificent." — Warren Ellis, author of Gun Machine and Transmetropolitan

This text enlivens an age-old tradition of prayer as an expression of radical reliance on God, or uncompromising surrender to life. This path, practised by saints across traditions and throughout time, elevates the possibility of prayer to a level beyond ordinary pleas for comfort and prosperity.

Battle Hall Davies is sure of some things: She's going to Reed this fall; she loves girls; and her older brother, Nick, outshines her. He ran away four and a half years ago; now he's tracked her down, and she's spending the summer at Forest House, where he lives in Portland. It is a summer of surprises. Battle is swept into Forest House's community Shakespeare production, their all-night card games, and the arms of her new housemate, Meryl. As the weeks pass, Battle realizes that Nick isn't who she thought he was - and she isn't who she thought she was, either.

For more than thirty years, John W. Travis, M.D., and Regina Sara Ryan have taught hundreds of thousands of people a practical whole-self approach to wellness and healthy living. Each chapter of the comprehensive WELLNESS WORKBOOK explores one of the twelve interconnected forms of energy that contribute to your overall health and vitality: Self-Responsibility and Love, Breathing, Sensing, Eating, Moving, Feeling, Thinking, Playing and Working, Communicating, Sex,Finding Meaning,Transcending From how you breathe to how you view the world, these twelve areas affect all aspects of your life: your disposition toward injury and illness, your relationships, your general level of happiness, and beyond. In an optimal state of wellness, all of your energies are in balance, and you are less prone to disease, stress, and other life-depleting factors. Using a self-assessment tool known as the Wellness Index, you’ll develop a clear picture of what areas in your life need attention. Now in its third edition, the thoroughly updated and streamlined WELLNESS WORKBOOK provides hundreds of exercises and ideas to help you take control of your health and happiness. · A classic text in the wellness field, thoroughly revised and updated, and streamlined for a more simple and practical presentation. · Chapters cover self-responsibility and love, breathing, sensing, eating, moving, feeling, thinking, playing and working, communicating, sex, finding meaning, and transcending. · Previous editions have sold more than 200,000 copies.

In every spiritual tradition, there is the story of an ardent seeker who, while waiting for God, closes his door to the poor beggar who visits unexpectedly. Later, believing that the Lord has failed to appear, the seeker complains: Where were you? God responds, I came to you many times, in many forms, but always you turned me away. This is the true life story of that symbolic beggar, a hidden saint, a well-educated holy man who begged on the streets of India, Yogi Ramsuratkumar (1918 - 2001). Only God was his creed, and his approach to everyday life. His unusual innocence and radiant presence were recognised by seekers from both East and West, who knew him as the Godchild of Tiruvannamalai, the small city where he lived for forty years. The book also includes the lives and teachings of the holy beggar's three distinguished gurus, including Sri Auribindo. With self-revelatory honesty and an enjoyable mix of storytelling, interviews, and fact-finding, this eminently readable biography is an affecting account of an extraordinary life.

Nicola Lancaster is spending her summer at the Siegel Institute, a hothouse of smart, intense teenagers. She soon falls in with Katrina (Manic Computer Chick), Isaac (Nice-Guy-Despite-Himself), Kevin (Inarticulate Composer) . . . and Battle, a beautiful blond dancer. The two become friends--and then, startlingly, more than friends. What do you do when you think you're attracted to guys, and then you meet a girl who steals your heart? A trailblazing debut, reissued with an introduction by acclaimed author David Levithan, and copious back matter, including three graphic novel stories by Sara Ryan (and artists Steve Leiber, Dylan Meconis, and Natalie Nourigat) about the characters.

The author presents ten steps toward healing with ideas and suggestions, some of which may be implemented immediately, such as breathing exercises and relaxation techniques.