We welcome Willa Schneberg back to Broadway Books, reading from her newest collection of poetry: The Naked Room. The book is a true synthesis of Willa's life as a psychotherapist, (of one not exempt from angst), and her life as a poet. These are poems of the unconscious, the dreamscape, the despondent, the unmoored and the mortal. This manuscript not only goes inside the inner workings of a clinician’s practice, but has a larger scope, which includes the history of psychiatric treatment with its dangerous “cures” and embedded prejudices, and treatment today and lack thereof for the houseless and insolvent for whom entering the realm of the “therapeutic hour” is a luxury beyond reach.
Matthew Smith, Professor of Health History at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, says "Willa Schneberg’s The Naked Room is an insightful, evocative, and often harrowing journey across time and place that depicts how we have tried, and often failed, to come to grips with what it means to be sane in an insane world." Pamela Annas, Professor Emerita of English at the University of Massachusetts, says "Willa Schneberg is an excellent poet who, from the perspective of the therapist, has opened up for us a world we don't usually see in poetry. The Naked Room should be required reading for those going into the profession of clinical psychology."
Willa Schneberg is a poet, ceramic sculptor, interdisciplinary artist, photographer, and curator. She is the author of six collections of poetry and received the Oregon Book Award for In the Margins of the World. Storytelling in Cambodia was inspired by her time working for the U.N. in the early '90s. In 2018, she was poet-in-residence in Kathmandu, Nepal, and in 2023 she will be conducting seminars and reading in Glasgow, Scotland. She is also a psychotherapist in private practice. Willa will be in conversation with Robin Bagai, a psychologist in private practice and the author of Commentaries on the Work of Michael Eigen: Oblivion and Wisdom, Madness and Music.
Willa Schneberg
Robin Bagai