Join us in the shop as award-winning journalist Ronnie Polaneczky interviews local author and professor Ned Bachus about his new book Mortal Things.
About the Book
What mortal things are fleeting, and what stay with us forever?
Set during a time of changing values and beliefs and in a Philadelphia neighborhood known for its diversity of ethnicity, race, and social-class, MORTAL THINGS shines a light on the impact of the families we are given and the ones we choose.
Told in alternating perspectives against the vibrant backdrop of one of Philadelphia's most distinctive neighborhoods, Mortal Things is a powerful reflection on the transient ties that can bind or break us.
Advance Praise for Mortal Things
"Ned Bachus's compulsively readable novel Mortal Things is a gorgeously written portrait of human friendship and all its longing and connection and loss. Set in a diverse Philadelphia neighborhood, the city is rendered so vividly you'll feel you live there. Bachus's writing displays such great depth and intelligence and sensitivity-all of which makes this novel wonderfully immersive. The book is profoundly moving and entertaining, with wry humor and knowing insights on display on every resonant page." –Susan Conley, author of Landslide, a New York Times Editor's Choice
"With an acute sense of place and insightful characterization, Ned Bachus captures the long-lasting ripple effects of chance meetings, unspoken truths, and the losses haunting our lives. Class divides of late 1980s Philadelphia, our much-needed connection in an atomized society, and how our sorrows can drive us to the unexpected are all masterfully explored. An atmospheric and powerful debut novel with deep emotional impact." –Marjan Kamali, author of the Boston Globe bestseller The Stationery Shop and the Massachusetts Book Award finalist Together Tea
About the Author
Ned Bachus’s collection of short stories City of Brotherly Love (Fleur-de-Lis Press) was awarded the 2013 Independent Publisher Award (IPPY) Gold Medal for Literary Fiction. Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife, said about City of Brotherly Love, “(My) life is variously enriched by reading Ned Bachus’s superb stories.” Nate House, author of Float, said, “Bachus’s writing perfectly captures the intricacies and contradictions of a city in search of itself… The stories…create their own kind of beauty…impossible to resist.”
Bachus’s Open Admissions: What Teaching at Community College Taught Me About Learning (Wild River Books, 2017) was called “brilliant, engaging, and instructive…a must read…both moving and personal; it is serious without being sanctimonious,” by Gina Barecca, UConn professor and author. Author Patti M. Marxsen said, “…the underlying metaphor of learning how to learn operates in every dimension of what Bachus has to say.”
Bachus’s stories have been anthologized and featured in literary magazines. He has won fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and had been awarded two artist residencies at Cill Rialaig Project in Ireland.
Born in Quebec and raised in Philadelphia, Ned Bachus received a BA from Temple University, an MA from Gallaudet University and an MFA from Vermont College.
During his nearly four-decade career at Community College of Philadelphia, Ned Bachus won multiple teaching awards and has spoken at colleges, libraries, and bookstores about the art and science of teaching and learning.
As a songwriter and member of Sacred CowBoys, he has recorded and performed widely; his songs have been performed and recorded by various artists in the U.S., and have been featured on radio programs, including A Prairie Home Companion.
About Ronnie Polaneczky
Ronnie is an award-winning journalist, speaker, and certified positive-psychology practitioner who uses her deep listening and reporting skills to uncover and honor what matters to us the most: Our dreams - for ourselves and for those we love. Our relationships - with others and with our own hearts. Our courage and strength - which is always, always greater than we realize.
She’s adept at seeing the unexpected ways that decisions and actions – conscious or unconscious – shape the moments of our days. How we choose to interpret them makes all the difference in creating lives filled with meaning, joy, love, and belonging.
It just takes compassionate curiosity.
In her TEDx talk, “The Power of Deliberate Listening,” Ronnie makes the point that the social engagement of the digital world has actually created conditions for social estrangement, encouraging us to substitute judgment for curiosity and to hold on with a death grip “our right to be right.” What can get lost, she says, is our willingness to be who we really are, “in all of our glorious, messed-up, perfectly imperfect humanity.”
Ronnie’s expertise helps us find joy again, one meaningful conversation at a time.
She brings these insights and more to her work as a public speaker, onstage interviewer, and emcee whose warmth, smarts, honesty, and humor quickly engage and connect her with audiences – and audience members with each other. And she makes it fun!
Ronnie is a veteran journalist who has written for Redbook, Men’s Health, Marie Clare, and Good Housekeeping, among others. She has won numerous local and national journalism awards for stories she wrote over two decades as a metro columnist for The Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer. In 2015, she received the coveted Eugene S. Pulliam Fellowship from the National Society of Professional Journalists and used it to explore the lives of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and the families who love them. (The resulting, awarding-winning series, “Falling Off the Cliff,” can be read here.) In 2019, she created the Inquirer’s popular positive-news section, The UpSide, whose stories celebrate the best of us - and the best within us. And in 2021, she earned her certification as a practitioner of Applied Certified Psychology from The Flourishing Center in New York.