Priscilla Gilman is the author of The Anti-Romantic Child: A Memoir of Unexpected Joy (HarperCollins), a beautiful exploration of one woman’s expectations and hopes for her children, her family, and herself, and of the ways in which we are all capable of reimagining our lives and finding joy in the most unexpected circumstances. A former professor of English at Yale and Vassar, with a background in the performing arts, Gilman is a captivating speaker whose warmth, dynamism, and accessibility make her highly sought-after by diverse audiences. In her wise and inspiring keynote speeches on subjects from parenting special needs children to literature as therapy, she shares the lessons she’s learned from her poignant journey through crisis and disenchantment to a place of peace and resilience.

Gilman had the greatest expectations for the birth of her first child. Growing up in New York among writers and artists, she experienced childhood as a whirlwind of imagination and creative play. Later, as a student and scholar of Wordsworth, she embraced the poet’s romantic view of children — and eagerly anticipated her son’s birth, certain that he, too, would come “trailing clouds of glory.” But her romantic vision would not be fulfilled in the ways she dreamed. Though Benjamin was an extraordinary child, the signs of his remarkable precocity were also manifestations of a developmental disorder that would require intensive therapies and special schooling, and would dramatically alter the course Gilman had imagined for her family. In The Anti-Romantic Child, as well as in her speeches, Gilman illuminates the flourishing of life that occurs when we embrace the unexpected, and shows how events and situations often perceived as setbacks can actually enrich us.

Priscilla Gilman grew up in New York City and is a former professor of English literature at Yale University and Vassar College. She has taught poetry appreciation to inmates in a restorative justice program and to New York City public school students. The Anti-Romantic Child, her first book, was excerpted in Newsweek magazine and featured on the cover of its international edition; it was an NPR Morning Edition Must-Read, Slate’s Book of the Week, and selected as one the Best Books of 2011 by the Leonard Lopate Show. Gilman writes regularly for publications including The Daily Beast, The New York Times, and The Huffington Post, speaks frequently at schools, conferences, and organizations about parenting, education, and the arts, and is a Scholar/Facilitator for the New York Council for the Humanities. She lives in New York City with her family. The Anti-Romantic Child has been nominated for a Books for a Better Life Award for Best First Book.