A New Novel by CHERYL J. FISH

Cheryl J. Fish, a NYC-based writer, poet, and professor  has been active since the 1980s in many downtown venues such as St. Mark's Poetry Project, Ear Inn, Darinka, and Bowery Poetry Club. She just published her debut novel, Off the Yoga Mat (Livingston Press, UWA).

Off the Yoga Mat begins and ends in the East Village where the characters live, work, and play. Nate, Nora, and Lulu find their lives unraveling, their aspirations dashed. Nate, dead broke, in his eighth year of graduate school delves into yoga. Nate's ex-girlfriend Nora finagles a position in Finland where she tries on men like miniskirts and embraces sisu, the Finnish concept of perseverance, in pursuit of motherhood. And yogi Lulu, Nate’s talented teacher with a successful yoga studio on Second Street, yearns to get to the bottom of her nightmares of childhood abuse as she travels to her hometown, New Orleans, to care for her ailing mother.

The book explores jealousy, bends of the body, and the courage to confront traumatic memory. Told in alternating chapters by Nate, Lulu, and Nora, the novel takes the reader on three risky coming-of-middle age journeys through sensuality, emotional evolution, and breathing deep.

Fish held a festive launch party reading and book signing in the backyard at Lucky on Ave. B, where poet Lydia Cortes also read and photographer Wrolf MC'd the festivities.  Her novel is available to purchase at Amazon, Bookshop, Livingston Press site, and at the new bookstore, P&T Knitwear Books and Podcasts on Orchard Street, where she also read in the First Floor walk-up series hosted by Wayne Kral.

Writer Tama Janowitz said of Off the Yoga Mat "it was fun to see and relive NYC in 1999! The lives of academics, yoga instructors, activists,  travel—what has remained the same and what has changed. OFF THE YOGA MAT delivers an entertaining, fascinating message, floating across time. "

For more information, and to read interviews and Cheryl's playlist for the novel on the Largehearted Boy Blog, see her website, cheryljfish.com