Above Water

This collection represents over a year's worth of work in conference rooms at the Community College of Philadelphia, underneath the frightful glare of LED lights and in neighborhood restaurants, over shared food and drink. And as The 17th Street Writers took shape and form it began to feel like more than a writing collective. It began to feel like a reflection of our city, Philadelphia, both old and new with an abundance of shopworn beauty. It began to feel like a reflection of where we all teach, the Community College of Philadelphia, a place where people still come to wrestle with their dreams. It began to feel like home, like ours. And this, then, is in all of the stories gathered in this collection - a sense of home, of being rooted in a specific place and time and people.