Universal Table

Finding the We in Them, the Us in You

Welcome

Wising Up

ABOUT OUR PRESS

ADVISORY BOARD

SUBJECTS

Writers Collective

Philosophy & Writers

Bookstore

Library: Anthologies A-H

The Art of the Anthology

COMPLEX ALLEGIANCES

CONNECTED

CREATIVITY & CONSTRAINT

CROSSING CLASS

DARING TO REPAIR

DOUBLE LIVES

FAMILIES

GOODNESS

Library: Anthologies I-Z

ILLNESS & GRACE

KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

LOVE AFTER 70

RE-CREATING COMMON CHORD

SHIFTING BALANCE SHEETS

SIBLINGS

SURPRISED BY JOY

VIEW BED: VIEW BEDSIDE

Library: Fiction

GERMS OF TRUTH

HEARTS AS BIG AS FISTS

LIVE YOUR LIFE

MY NAME IS YOUR NAME

NOT NATIVE

ONLY BEAUTIFUL

PHIL TRANS MARIA

SOMETHING LIKE HOPE

VISIBLE SIGNS

Library: Non-Fiction

GOD SPEAKS MY LANGUAGE

GREEN CARD

JOURNEYS-THOUSAND HEROES

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

LAST FLIGHT OUT

SHARING BURDEN OF REPAIR

2020 Immigration Debate

Library: Poetry

BREATHING IN PORTUGUESE

EPIPHANIES

HYMN THAT MEANDERS

SANCTITY OF THE MOMENT

Web Anthologies

Longer Than Expected

ColdShoulderSteadyingGaze

Naturalized Citizenship

Weight of Felony

Participants

Reading for Relation

Wising Up Gallery

Inclusion & Belonging

Resilience & Families

Creativity

Illness & Meaning

About Us

Special Seasonal Offerings from Wising Up Press:  Goodness, Re-Creating Our Common Chord, The Kindness of Strangers, Surprised by Joy, Connected, Daring to Repair. . . 

NEW PUBLICATIONS

SOMETHING LIKE HOPE & OTHER STORIES by William Cass

GOODNESS: A Wising Up Anthology
 
SHARING THE BURDEN OR REPAIR: Reentry After Mass Incarceration
A Wising Up Listening Project


OTHER RECENT PUBLICATIONS 

RE-CREATING OUR COMMON CHORD, A Wising Up Anthology
 
NOT NATIVE: Short Stories of Immigrant Life in an In-Between World by Murali Kamma
Bronze medal winner, 2020 IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Award) for Multicultural Fiction


A WELCOMING PHILOSOPHY


The aim of Universal Table is to promote tolerance and social trust along many dimensions of life - or those are the words we have been using in our official mission statement. But each time we use them, we realize we are trying to describe something far broader - something that encompasses welcome, difference, surprise and inclusion, truthfulness and authenticity, and an equal place for each of us and what we hold most dear. These are the true goals of Universal Table: Finding the We in Them, the Us in You.

Our major activities are the books we create and publish through Wising Up Press, and the Universal Table workshops and research projects that both develop and support them. Our areas of particular interest are social justice & inclusion, immigration & belonging, pluralism in families, illness & meaning, social and psychological resiliency, creative aging, listening across faiths - and the many other complex challenges and lasting rewards of living up close and personal with pluralism in social, family, religious, and civic life.

What distinguishes our approach is an equal emphasis on the why and the how of living well with difference. Through our research projects, we are developing new interpretations of chronic areas of social discord, interpretations that make it safer for us to interact from a position of respect and appreciation with people who have very different world views and value systems.

We are equally interested in specific techniques, especially the use of story and other art forms, to help us change our patterns of direct personal interaction, so that we can live out our best intentions. What ways of thinking, imagining, listening, speaking and being with one another truly expand our worlds? For real, sustainable change takes place at the day by day, person by person, word by word, gesture by gesture level - and it isn't easy and it isn't simple. But fascinating, rewarding, energizing, inspiring, and worth all the effort - without a doubt.


SPECIAL SEASONAL OFFERINGS FROM WISING UP PRESS

 Goodness . . . The Kindness of Strangers . . . Surprised by Joy 

Connected . . . Daring To Repair . . . Re-Creating Our Common Chord

Thre's no better to promote the healing that we all need, individually and collectively, this season than with gifts about goodness, kindness—and, certainly, joy. We all benefit when we focus more on connecting with one another, repairing relationships, and re-creating our common chord. This has always been our central mission at Wising Up Press through our anthologies.

Now and through the end of the year to facilitate your gift giving, we are offering a special reduced price of $12 per book on the purchase of any combination/number of the preceding anthologies. Click on the cover images to read more. 

Send orders to new-orders@universaltable.org

For shipping/handling/taxes you will be charged $5 for the first book and $1 for each additional book.


NEW PUBLICATIONS

New Publication

SOMETHING LIKE HOPE & OTHER STORIES
William Cass

What attaches you to the characters in William Cass's moving first collection of stories is that they are loving people, emotionally observant and internally responsive to the world around them. Even when isolated, and many of them are, Cass's men and women know what it is to be connected. . .
READ MORE

BUY NOW

NEW PUBLICATION

GOODNESS
A Wising Up Anthology
 Charles D. Brockett & Heather Tosteson, Editors

The forty-three writers included in this anthology responded to our invitation to think with us—broadly and intimately—about goodness in our lives: Where have you seen goodness in play? How has it changed your own life, the actual choices you make or how you evaluate your choices? We hope you will find personal inspiration and resonance in this thoughtful and moving collection . .  
READ MORE
BUY 


NEW PUBLICATION

SHARING THE BURDEN OF REPAIR:
REENTRY AFTER MASS INCARCERATION

A Wising Up Listening Project

This book describes a six-year listening project on reentry that took place at the crest of an unusual wave of bipartisan criminal justice reform in Georgia, one of our most punishing states. Its primary intended audience is common citizens, like us, concerned about the reality of mass incarceration but unsure how to engage. . . READ MORE

BUY


CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

RECENT  PUBLICATIONS

RE-CREATING OUR COMMON CHORD
A Wising Up Anthology

With the intense polarization in our society these days, the volume and vitriol so high on all sides, how do we live out our commitment to the existentially equal value of those around us when we ourselves feel deeply devalued, feel our definition of the common good is unheard or denied? What do we do with our strong responses to the threat that devaluation poses—a threat our bodies and our hearts recognize even faster than our minds? . . . 

Thirty-seven contemporary writers share here, through memoir, fiction, poetry, and essay, their own experiences with discovering, creating, or re-creating our common chord across nationality, class, criminal justice, religion, race, politics, family, community. Come join us . . .

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BOOKSTORE


NOT NATIVE: 
Short Stories of Immigrant Life in an In-Between World
Murali Kamma

The stories in this debut collection explore experiences of first generation Indian immigrants in the U.S. Kamma’s characters deal with conflict, growth, dislocation, and renewal in a new world. Their old world is also present, and this "in-betweenness" shapes their lives.

LOOK INSIDE
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Bronze medal winner, 2020 IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Award) for Multicultural Fiction


GREEN CARD & OTHER ESSAYS
by Áine Greaney

In Green Card & Other Essays, Áine Greaney invites her readers to follow her three-decades' long journey from Irish citizen and resident to new immigrant and green card holder to dual citizenship that now includes naturalized U.S. citizenship.   


LOOK INSIDE
BUY

MORE RECENT ANTHOLOGIES

CROSSING CLASS: The Invisible Wall
SURPRISED BY JOY
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
ABOUT WISING UP PRESS

WISING UP PRESS

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       VIDEO: From Vision to Reality - Why We Started a Small Collaborative Press

       VIDEO: From Vision to Reality - How We Started a Small Collaborative Press

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The world going too fast? Too much talk? 
We invite you to take a meditative pause with our Wising Up galleries. . . 
 
WISING UP GALLERIES
 
Kindness of Strangers        Complex Allegiances        Shifting Balance Sheets

Siblings       Connected       Daring to Repair
 
Creativity & Constraint       Germs of Truth       The Sanctity of the Moment

WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE AN ANTHOLOGY TO START A CONVERSATION?

We see our books, especially our Wising Up Anthologies, as catalysts for community, a way of deepening the conversations that develop through the shared experience of reading, especially around areas of sticky, or strident, social concern . . .
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Stephanie Hart: Contributing author and discussion leader
The Kindness of Strangers NYC Discussion Group
Universal Table   Finding the We in Them, the Us in You.   Wising Up Press
www.universaltable.org      P.O. Box 2122, Decatur, GA 30031-2122      404-276-6046