Elizabeth Andrew is a writing instructor and spiritual director living in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is the author of Swinging on the Garden
Gate: A Spiritual Memoir (Skinner House Books, 2000) and is currently
writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual
Memoir (Skinner House Books, to be published fall 2004), and
Dwellings (Westview Press, to be published winter 2005), a collection
of personal essays. She has published essays and short memoirs in The
Christian Century, Fourth Genre, Many Mountains Moving,
The Florida Review, Open Hands, and other literary and
religious journals, including the anthology, Blessed Bi Spirit:
Bisexual People of Faith. Elizabeth's writing most often explores
intersections between sexual identity, spiritual growth and the creative
process. She teaches memoir, essay and journal writing at the Loft Literary
Center in Minneapolis.
A bold and probing story, Swinging on the Garden Gate explores
bisexuality as a creative expression of God and examines the various ways in
which the spirit resides in the world. Andrew weaves the threads of
spirituality, sexuality and the creative process out of the compelling events of
her life. The spark of spirit she finds embedded in her body she also discovers
throughout the solid matter of life-in childhood, in nature, in encounters with
death and loss and wild growth. Her exploration of the sacred is vivid, fresh,
and grounded in the details of ordinary days. In Andrew's words, "There was a
time when I was not yet out of the closet when I'd stand for hours scanning the
bookstore shelves for a book that dealt honestly with both sexuality and
spirituality, that might reconcile the experience of being bisexual with the
Christian faith. If I could find this book, I'd be less lonely and more
confident of my sanity. There was no such book. The gap on the bookshelves gave
me a mandate: Walk into your longing. Write this book."
Debra Kolodny, editor of Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith
writes of Swinging: "Elizabeth's words sing. Her life soars. This
work will doubtless inspire others to claim the lush delights of their own
secret gardens."
Parker Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the
Voice of Vocation, writes, "The most important decision anyone can make is
to live 'divided no more,' to cease acting on the outside in ways that
contradict truths one holds deeply on the inside. Swinging on the Garden
Gate is a memoir of one woman's journey into the undivided life. Written
with honesty, grace and power, this book is a joy to read, and more. Read
carefully, it will call us toward congruence in our own lives, toward an
incarnation of truth that will set us-and our world-free."
(This biographical statement provided by Elizabeth Andrew.)