Academic Articles

Available through the publishers.

• Hendrix, E., Barusch, A.S. & Gringeri, C. (2020). It Eats me Alive! Social workers reflect on practice in Neoliberal Contexts. Social Work Education: The international journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2020.1718635  

• Barusch, A.S. (2017). Love, in Retrospect. Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging, Summer. 

• Gringeri, C., Barusch, A.S. & Cambron, C. (2013) Examining foundations of qualitative research: a review of social work dissertations, 2008-2010. Journal of Social Work Education. 49(4), 760-773.  

• Gringeri, C., Barusch, A.S. & Cambron, C. (2013). Epistemology in Qualitative Social Work Research: A review of published articles 2008 – 2010. Social Work Research. 37(1), 55-63. 

• Barusch, A.S. & Waters, D.L. (2012). Social Engagement of Frail Elders. The Journal of Frailty & Aging. 1(4), 183-188. 

• Barusch, A.S. (2012). Intimacy in Late Life: Reflections on love and care. Geriatric Care Management Journal. Spring, 2012. 10-12. 

• Barusch, A.S., Gringeri, C. & George, M. (2011). Rigor in Qualitative Social Work Research: An empirical review of strategies used in published articles. Social Work Research, 35(1), 11-19. 

• Barusch, A.S. & Wilby, F. (2010). Coping with Symptoms of Depression: A descriptive survey of community-dwelling elders. Clinical Gerontologist, 33, (3), 210- 222. 

• Barusch, A.S. (2010). Envy is Ignorance. Bravado, 18, 44-45 (essay in New Zealand literary journal) 

• Barusch, A.S., Luptak, M. & Hurtado, M. (2009). Supporting the labor force participation of older adults: An international survey of policy options. Journal of Gerontological Social Work. 53(6), 584-599. 

• Thompson, C.W., Durrant, L., Barusch, A.S., & Olson, L. (2006). Fostering coping skills and resilience in HEN consumers. Nutrition in Clinical Practice.21(6), 557-65. 

• Taylor, M.J., Barusch, A.S. & Vogel, M.B. (2006). Heterogeneity at the Bottom: TANF closure and long-term welfare recipients. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 13(2), 1-14. 

• Maramaldi, P., Berkman, B. & Barusch, A.S. (2005) Assessment and the Ubiquity of Culture: Threats to Validity in Measures of Health Related Quality of Life. Health and Social Work. 30(1), 27-38. 

• Taylor, M.J. & Barusch, A.S. (2004). Personal, family, and multiple barriers of long-term welfare recipients. Social Work.49(2),9-15. 

• Abu Bader, S. Rogers, A., & Barusch, A.S. (2002) Predicting Life Satisfaction Among Frail Elders. Journal of Gerontological Social Work. 38(3), 3-18. 

• Barusch, A.S. (2001). Social Security is not for babies: Issues and trends affecting older women in the U.S. Families in Society, 81(8),568-575. 

• Rogers, A. & Barusch, A.S. (2001). Mental Health Service Utilization Among Frail, Low-Income Elders: Perceptions of Home Service Providers and Elders in the Community. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 34(2), 23-38. 

• Barusch, A.S. (2000). Serving Older Men: Dilemmas and Opportunities. Geriatric Care Management Journal, 10(1), Winter, 31-36. 

• Barusch, A.S. Rogers, A. & Abu-Bader, S. (1999) Depressive Symptoms Among the Frail Elderly: Physical and Psycho-social Correlates. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 49(2), 107-125. 

• Peak, T.& Barusch, A.S. Managed Care: A Critical Overview. (1999) Journal of Health and Social Policy, 11(1), 21-36. 

• Barusch, A.S. (1999) Religion, age and adversity: Religious experiences of low-income, elderly women. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Vol 26(1), 125-141. (special issue on aging). 

• Barusch, A.S. (1997) Self-concepts of low-income older women: Not old or poor, but fortunate and blessed. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 44(4), 269-282. 

• Barusch, A.S. & Spaid, W.M. (1996). Spouse caregivers and the caregiving experience: Does cognitive impairment make a difference? Journal of Gerontological Social Work. 25(3/4), 93-106. 

• Barusch, A.S. (1995). Programming for family care: Mandates, incentives and rationing. Social Work, 40(3), 315-322. 

• Spaid, W., and Barusch, A.S. (1994). The Importance of Relationship: Emotional Closeness and Caregiver Burden in the Marital Relationship. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 21(3/4), 197-213.

• Spaid, W.M. and Barusch, A.S. (1991). Social Support and Caregiver Strain: The impact of positive and aversive social contacts on elderly spouse caregivers. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 18(1/2),151-162. 

• Barusch, A.S. and Spaid, W., (1991). Reducing caregiver burden through short-term training: Evaluation findings from a caregiver support project. Journal of Gerontological Social Work. 17(1/2), 7-34. 

• Barusch, A.S. and Spaid, W., (1989) Gender differences in caregiving: Why do women report greater burden? The Gerontologist, 29(5), 667-676. 

• Barusch, A.S. and Spaulding, M. L., (1989) The Impact of Americanization on the U.S. Territory of Guam. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 16(3), 61-80. 

• Barusch, A.S., (1988). Problems and Coping Strategies of Elderly Spouse Caregivers. The Gerontologist, 28, 677-685. 

• Barusch, A.S. (1987) Power Dynamics in the Aging Family, Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 11(3/4), 43-56. 

• Barth, R.P. & Snowden L.R., (1987) with Ten Broeck, E., Clancy, T., Jordan, C., and Barusch, A.S. Contributors to Reunification or Permanent Out-of-Home Care For Physically Abused Children. Journal of Social Service Research, 9(2/3), 31-46. 

• Barusch, A.S. & Miller, L.S. (1986). The Effect of Services on Family Assistance to the Frail Elderly. Journal of Social Service Research, 9(1), 31-45. 

• Barusch, A.S. & Runyan, W.M. (1983) Ellen’s Journal: A Content Analytic Approach to Individual Psychology. Individual Psychology, 39(3), 274-287. 

Aging Angry

• Title – Aging Angry

• Subtitle – Making Peace with Rage

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Aging, Gerontology, Schools & Teaching, Education, Developmental Psychology

• Type – Book

• Publication Date – January 19, 2024

• Publisher – Oxford University Press

• Medium – Ebook, Hardback, Paperback

• Available at:

  • Amazon

    • https://a.co/d/c36nAOa

  • Barnes & Nobel

    • https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/aging-angry-amanda-smith-barusch/1143856998?ean=9780197584644

  • Oxford University Press

    • https://global.oup.com/academic/product/aging-angry-9780197584644?cc=us&lang=en&q=aging%20angry

• Synopsis – Fear of anger can ultimately be as destructive as expressed rage, fomenting social isolation, injustice, and misunderstanding. In rich and insightful prose, Aging Angry draws upon the experiences of hundreds of older adults and a wealth of literary and academic sources to empower readers with a new understanding of anger’s sources, dynamics, and possibilities. The book unearths the deeper meaning in these angry times and urges readers to take anger seriously; to harness its energy and wisdom for personal and social change.

• Endorsements:

  • “In Aging Angry, distinguished gerontologist, Amanda Barusch, confronts her own justified fury at having been pushed into unwanted university retirement by diving into original research on gray rage, while also providing a sobering survey of anger across history, philosophy and culture. She argues that the smoldering anger associated with late life, rather than an unsightly negative emotion to be reproached, often stems from legitimate causes. By leaning into one’s consternation, she contends, we may harness our ire with productive purposes, from resolving family estrangement to protesting injustice, like the Raging Grannies. Barusch inverts the old cliché of Boston politics, as if she’d counsel, “Don’t get even, get mad!” And make worthwhile change.”

    —Paul Kleyman, National Coordinator, Journalists Network on Generations

  • “Jump-started by her own unexpected and shocking experience of ageism in academe, Amanda Barusch's Aging Angry is eminently reasonable for a book about anger, the righteous, intelligent kind that surfaces as we grow older and are likely to encounter and observe more injustice—especially toward older adults, women, people with disabilities or low incomes, and later-life activists who fight the power. Barusch's fascinating interviews with "grumpy, cantankerous, and obstreperous elders" deepen our interest in using this primary emotion effectively to heal our nations of the common curse of ageism and improve the world.”

    —Margaret Morganroth Gullette, author of Ending Ageism, or How Not to Shoot Old People

  • “Superbly researched with stories interwoven to amplify our understanding of anger through multiple lenses: historical, cultural, psychological, and philosophical. Additionally, Barusch provides a highly personal perspective, as her experience of being pushed out of academia provided the impetus to explore anger with a gerontological twist. This work fills a gap in knowledge about … anger and its various manifestations. It’s a clear and compelling read.”

    —Constance Corley, Emeritus Professor, Cal State Los Angeles Source

  • “Drawing upon the great philosophers, religion, psychology, and her interviews with older adults and experts, Barusch comprehensively analyzes anger—an emotion often stigmatized, especially among older women, and relatively invisible in the field of gerontology. Her own personal experience with anger upon her retirement fueled her interest in the paradox faced by older adults of living forward while looking backward, which often underlies their anger. When older adults realize that love and anger can coexist and turn their anger into activism, they experience personal growth and oftentimes become activists for social change.”

    —Nancy Hooyman, Dean Emeritus, University of Washington School of Social Work

  • “With wisdom, wit, and style, Amanda Barusch affirms anger as an emotion to be embraced constructively as we age into later adulthood. From surveying world history and mythology to psychology and neuroscience, Dr. Barusch describes the nuanced nature of anger’s relationship with the human experience. She draws on lessons learned through interviews to provide a roadmap for older adults to activate their anger to live fuller lives and improve the social good. In doing so, Dr. Barusch’s book arrives as a fresh and necessary tome to challenge and inspire all of us to reconsider the positive role and utility of anger in our lives.”

    —Mitch Rosenwald, Professor of Social Work, Director of Doctoral Studies, Barry University School of Social Work

Cougars and Crones

• Title – Cougars and Crones

• Subtitle – Maverick Archetypes for Older Women

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Non-fiction, Women’s Studies

• Type – A chapter from the book, “Shaping Ageing”

• Publication Date – Arpil, 2022

• Publisher – Taylor & Francis Group

• Medium – Journal

• Available at – Taylor & Francis Group

• Link – https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003046790-5/cougars-crones-amanda-barusch

• Synopsis – This sprightly little piece argues that cougars and crones might not get on terribly well but they both fulfill the same function: Expanding the possibilities for older women. It appears in Shaping Ageing: Social Transformations and Enduring Meanings, edited by Adriana Teodorescu and Dan Chiribuca and published by Routledge.

Shaping Ageing: Social Transformations and Enduring Meanings

• Title – Shaping Ageing: Social Transformations and Enduring Meanings

• Subtitle – Social Perspectives on Ageing and Later Life

• Editors – Adriana Teodorescu, Dan Chiribucă

• Amanda Barusch’s Contribution – Chapter 3: Cougars and Crones: Maverick Archetypes for Older Women

• Genre – Sociology, Gerontology

• Type – Book

• Publication Date – March 24, 2022

• Publisher – Routledge

• Medium – Ebook, Hardback

• Available at – Amazon

• Link – https://a.co/d/48EakMa

• Synopsis – This volume examines the manifold, often contradictory, aspects of ageing, considering the ways in which contemporary social transformations affect the experience, conception, interpretation, and representation of ageing. Thematically arranged, it brings together the latest scholarly work from around the world to consider theories and narratives of ageing and the effects of space and place on identity and the experience of old age. Combining micro and macro perspectives, as well as theoretical and applied research, this interdisciplinary volume offers cross-cultural and comparative studies that resist overgeneralization and reductivism in an effort to shed fresh light on our experience, understanding, and response to ageing in the modern world. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences, particularly sociology, gerontology, demography, social policy, and cultural studies, with interests in ageing and later life.

Shadowed Hourglass

• Title – Shadowed Hourglass

• Subtitle – A Collection of Poetry and Prose

• Editors – Bryan Young, Cherie Butler, Lorraine Jeffery

• Amanda Barusch’s Contribution – A short prose piece entitled “Patient Zero”

• Genre – General Fiction

• Type – Short Story

• Publication Date – July 26th, 2021

• Publisher – Luw Press

• Medium – Paperback

• Available at – The King’s English Bookshop

• Link – https://www.kingsenglish.com/book/9781735484105

• Synopsis – In Feb, 2020, a student in New Zealand accused me of infecting her with COVID. Roiling with guilt at 3am, I wrote this story. p.s. I tested negative.

• Source Text:

  Patient Zero

  “Have you landed??? Did you get the tickets? Can’t wait! XXX”

  Kisses in caps. Yum.

  Melissa’s text perked him up during the forced march through endless airport corridors. He grinned and stopped to reply.

  No, better keep the girl waiting . . . build the suspense.

  He did have the concert tickets and they’d cost him two week’s pay. He figured Melissa was worth it.

  The babe is hot.

   Lost in scintillative fantasies, he almost missed the sign for screening. His shoes squeaked on the tile as he made a sharp right turn to grab the mandatory form. 

  He ticked all the right boxes. 

  No fever.

  No cough.

  No fatigue—well, some, but that was to be expected after a long flight.

  Just check no and sign the bloody thing.

  “I feel fine.” His voice echoed in the plexiglass cubicle. “Glad to be home. Hey, I just want to crash, mate.” He gave what he thought was a charming grin, but the masked technician just rammed a long Q-tip up his nose.

  “You’ll have the result in 48 hours. Meanwhile, you are required to self-isolate.” 

  “Yes, sir.” No way that’s going to happen, bud. I’ve got a date with Melissa.

  ~ ~ ~ 

  Self-isolate. Decades later, the words still echo in his ears. He puts the kettle on for morning tea and wonders whether the neighbor will bring by one of her nice scones. She might pat him on the arm and tell him he’s not such a bad sort.

  Anyway, it’s peaceful on a Sunday, no threatening phone calls, no sound but the click click click of the clock and occasional swish of a car racing through puddles on High Street. 

  He drifts outside to fetch the paper and stops in his tracks on the way back. Red letters scrawl across the front wall of his house.

  Damn.

  He grabs the bucket and sets to work, knuckles still cracked from last time. Rain pelts his bare head and dribbles down his neck. He works himself into a stinky sweat scrubbing the defaced wall.

  Red paint. Always hard to get out.

  His hands ache from scrubbing, and now there’s a blood-red stain beneath his kitchen window. He can still make out the faint letters: K I L L E

  It’s the truth, ain’t it? Can’t erase what I am.

  He glares at a boy riding by on a bike, sure it’s the one who defaced his wall. 

  Youngster wasn’t even alivethen. Forty bloody years and they never forget

  ~

  He puts on his hat, picks up his cane, and leaves for the market. 

  “Just the flowers?” the checker asks, hers the only human voice he’ll hear today. 

  I’m self-isolating. “Hmm? Oh, yes. Just the flowers, thanks.”

  He stops at a bench, pulls some twine from his pocket, and assembles the bright peonies into small bouquets, thirteen of them plus one for the neighbor lady. He tosses a flower with a broken stem into the gutter.

  The cemetery gate groans open at a nudge from his hand. Hairs rise on the back of his arm and he knows she’s there. 

  Yes.

  There she is, dancing to music only she can hear. A thick fog blurs her edges, but he sees her in his mind’s eye—glinting blue eyes, curly black strands clinging to her sweaty face, left breast peeking out from that low-cut dress.  

  Ah, those breasts.

  He holds out a bouquet, but she skims away. Her gauzy skirt twists in an ethereal breeze while her high heels click click click with each step on thin air. 

  Always marking time, that girl.

  An icy finger threads a path down his spine and her hand nestles on his rump like a cat. 

  “It’s too late,” she whispers, and a cloud of Scotch engulfs his head. 

  He turns, but she hides behind a tree. “Too late for what, Melissa?” 

  “Too late for everything. Your time’s up, mate.” She licks his ear and he shivers. “Time to pay for your sins.”  

  “But, I didn’t know I was infected.” 

  Her laugh whistles through the trees and she disappears. 

   He gives a nervous chuckle and pats his aching chest.

  She’s just messing with me.

  Patient Zero sighs and weaves through the graveyard placing fresh bouquets on thirteen scattered graves, all of them his.

Pandemic in America

• Title – Pandemic in America

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Non-fiction

• Type – Personal Essay

• Publication Date – March 1, 2021

• Publisher – Newsroom New Zealand

• Medium – Newspaper

• Available at – Newsroom New Zealand

• Link – https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/pandemic-in-america

• Synopsis – A personal essay from University of Otago academic Amanda Barusch on living in a United States that has lost more than half a million people to Covid-19.

You on the Street

• Title – You on the Street

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – General Fiction

• Type – Flash Fiction

• Publication Date – December 18, 2020

• Publisher – Flashes [of Brilliance]

• Medium – Literary Website

• Available at – Flashes [of Brilliance]

• Link – https://www.flashesofbrilliance.org/flash-fiction-you-on-the-street-by-amanda-barusch/

• Synopsis – This one's a little autobiographical. I ran into an old flame on the street and for a brief desperate moment wondered what I could possibly say. The moment passed and so did he, without a word.

The Errant Strand

• Title – The Errant Strand

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – General Fiction

• Type – Flash Fiction

• Publication Date – August 17, 2020

• Publisher – Every Day Fiction

• Medium – Online Magazine

• Available at – Every Day Fiction

• Link – https://everydayfiction.com/the-errant-strand-by-amanda-barusch/

• Source Text:

  The Errant Strand

  Sweat crept down his back as he stepped off the rumbling bus and stood at attention with the other recruits. He’d used a cheap comb to part his hair with what he thought was military precision — on the right, in a thin straight line. But he couldn’t control that one strand growing out of his cowlick. He liked the idea of a wide-eyed cow licking his left temple but he did value order in those days, so he tried hard to control his unruly lock. He tried everything short of hair spray, which struck him as girly and he didn’t like the smell. Nothing did the trick so, as he stood there in the Texas sun, that one strand drew a proud arc and flopped right into his eyes.

  A tall guy with clippers sliced off his hair and for one hellish year of jungle warfare the strand lay stifled under a buzz cut. It never arced quite as high after that. He left the Army with his honor intact and his confidence demolished. Still, he got into Berkeley with the GI bill, grew his hair out and learned to roll a joint.

  He cultivated a taste for disorder and came to enjoy the simple act of dropping his dirty clothes on the dorm room floor. He made a few gestures towards revolution but he never hurt anyone. A newspaper reporter in a roiling street asked why he was protesting the war. Tears flowed from his stinging eyes and he yelled, “Why the hell aren’t you?”

  The next day, his picture was in the newspaper with a caption: “campus radical.”

  “I’m no radical!” he yelled and kicked a bike that was locked to a power pole.

  When they shot those kids in Ohio his mom cried. She kept saying, “It could have been you!” She wanted him to come home but he hated her when she cried. By then, the strand hung loose down his hollow cheek and people stared at him when he loped down the street.

  He majored in sociology because he heard it was easy. They let him graduate, much to his surprise. Then he applied for job after job and they told him he needed skills; more skills; different skills. He figured he needed camouflage so he got a buzz cut and a new shirt. Rubbing his scalp reminded him how much he disliked taking orders.

  “But,” Pop said, “you do like to eat, don’t you?”

  So he kept looking.

  Then he met Debbie in a crowded pub. She and another girl sat at the bar drinking wine and laughing loud, their t-shirts so tight he could make out all four nipples pert and ready. Debbie thought he was square with that buzz cut and Oxford shirt but later she said he had a poetic face, “Sweet, in a sad kind of way.”

  He nearly passed out when she reached up to rub the fuzz on his scalp and pressed her nipple into his shoulder. Later he would tell her the first thing he noticed in that bar was her tinkling laugh. He came to believe it was true.

  At the wedding, the errant strand once again strayed into his eyes. There’s a picture of him in his tux and her in her gown reaching up to tuck the lock back from his face with her fingertips. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch.

  She tucked that hair back thousands of times. Even after their daughters were born and things got hectic, she always picked him up at work, always leaned across to tuck back his strand with her fingertips. But there’s only that one picture.

  Debbie collected travel brochures. She taped a postcard of the Forbidden City to the bathroom mirror. His company moved to China. His unemployment ran out. She threw the postcard away.

  By the time leukemia took her, their girls were grown and gone. They came back for the funeral and couldn’t understand why he couldn’t squeeze out a single tear.

  “To hell with them,” he muttered. “To hell with everything.” He sold the house, threw all those damn brochures in the trash, and signed up for Social Security. He kept his grey hair stretched in a ponytail at the back of his neck and started smoking pot again.

  “Hey! It’s legal!” he exclaimed with a cough.

  He met a biker woman from Nevada in a bar. She thought the strand made him look like Elvis and she never did tuck it back from his face. Joleen wasn’t the tucking back type, with her brown leather skin and unfiltered Camels, but she didn’t mind his mess and she had a good laugh. He liked to rest his head on her flat, little tummy.

  Joleen persuaded him to move to Elko and buy a twelve-foot skiff. He found winters cold but the summer fishing made up for it. She loved to angle for trout and he liked to putter with the boat. He found a measure of pride in being a veteran and joined the Rotary. On Saturdays, they drove a pickup to town to drink beer and gossip at The Star Hotel. A quiet contentment snuck up on him.

  The afternoon he passed was the hottest of the year. They were out on Ruby Marsh drinking beer with a few bass in the bucket.

  “Damn! I wish I’d brought my hat.”

  Those were his last words before, as Joleen explained to all who’d listen, “He just leaned over and died right there in the boat.”

  No drama and very little mess but Joleen was haunted nonetheless. She kept remembering his head in her lap, how after he died that lock of hair fell into his eyes and how she tucked it back with her fingertips.

A Place for Dad

• Title – A Place for Dad

• Author - Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Non-fiction

• Type – A chapter from the book, “Care Home Stories”

• Publication Date – January 1, 2020

• Publisher – Academia.edu

• Medium – Journal

• Available at – Academia.edu

• Link – https://www.academia.edu/62281061/A_Place_for_Dad

• Synopsis – Published in Care Home Stories, which Sally Chivers and Ulla Kriebernegg edited and published by Transcript Verlag, this chapter describes my family's struggle to care for my father when, in his mid-80s, he developed Alzheimer's Disease. It reveals the seamy side of the for-profit elder care “industry” in the United States and puts our experience in national and historical contexts.

Devil Wind

• Title – Devil Wind

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – General Fiction

• Type – Flash Fiction

• Publication Date – 2019

• Publisher – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine

• Medium – Magazine

• Available at – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine (via Lucid Press)

• Link – https://pubsecure.lucidpress.com/crackthespine260/#W0.KiFPllsw.

• Source Text:

  Devil Wind

  Evening shouldn’t be this warm.

  Santa Ana. That man on the television with the wobbling chin. He says you should say the middle ‘a.’ “Some people,” he says, “are just too lazy to say the middle a.” Test it on your tongue and imagine a wind named after a saint. No. Mama says don’t listen to him with his fancy words. It was the people named the wind Santana. This wind is named for the devil.

  The sun comes up dirty when Santana rolls through. The hairs prickle up from my head. Papa scoots his socks across the carpet and a spark jumps from his finger to my nose. “Static electricity,” he says. But then he has to go help out at the dairy.

  We’re shut inside. Mama mutters, “Those precious cows aren’t even his.”

  She squeezes my shoulder and tells me about the strong man who thought he could stop the wind. He climbed the cliff wall, hugging cold rock until he hauled himself over the edge and stood panting on the bare mesa. He stared straight into the dark eyes of the wind eagle. Her claws clutched the edge of a massive nest in the topmost branch of a dying tree. When she flapped her wings the wind snapped hair into his eyes. Tears cooled his temples. His kerchief tugged loose and flew away. The snaps of his shirt tore open one by one until it, too, sailed away, sleeves waving. With a gasp he landed on his back and his pants stole out from underneath. They, too, took flight. Socks and shoes dribbled along behind. He lost his hair and eyebrows strand by strand. He lies there now. Prone. Clinging to the base of that dying tree.

  You don’t close drapes against Santana. Better to watch the desert unhinged. Tumbleweeds bound in elegant arcs. A rusty slab of corrugated tin revolves in the air high above the barn. Dust devils twirl through the fields. Little tornadoes sucking water from crops. An invisible hand rips out our mulberry tree. Roots dangle in the desiccated air.

  Fire to the West. Smoke erases the sun.

  Santana’s churning. Get ready for a night of howls and whispers. Walls shudder in the dark; beams moan. Fingers of dust sneak under the doors. A window cracks. Coyote howls. Mama says no sleep for the wicked.

  When sun finally rises the earth so still and the air so clear. Colors hurt your eyes—red sand, purple mountains, sapphire sky pierced in the west by leftover stars.

  A chain saw slices the faraway quiet and Mama snores on the sofa.

  I slip outside and down the path to the corral. Trash huddles in the bottlebrush: plastic bags, baling wire, a Barbie doll with no clothes at all.

  I throw some hay to my hungry little mare hunkered there behind the wood pile, black tail snug against her chestnut rump. Her eyes swollen shut leaking sludge. She smells me and nickers but she can’t see

  all those stiff black birds scattered across the field.

Creating Social Change Through Creativity

• Title – Creating Social Change Through Creativity

• Subtitle – Anti-oppressive arts-based research methodologies

• Editors – M. Capous-Desyllas & K. Morgaine (Eds)

• Amanda Barusch’s Contribution – Chapter 6: Conversations with Suzanna: Exploring gender, motherhood, and research practice.

• Genre – Sociology

• Type – Book

• Publication Date – Nov. 7, 2017

• Publisher – Palgrave Macmillan

• Medium – Hardcover, Softcover, eBook, PDF

• Available at – Springer Link

• Link – https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-52129-9

• PDF – Chapter 6: Conversations with Suzanna

• Synopsis – This book examines research using anti-oppressive, arts-based methods to promote social change in oppressed and marginalized communities. The contributors discuss literary techniques, performance, visual art, and new media in relation to the co-construction of knowledge and positionality, reflexivity, data representation, community building and engagement, and pedagogy. The contributors to this volume hail from a wide array of disciplines, including sociology, social work, community psychology, anthropology, performing arts, education, medicine, and public health.

Care Home Stories

• Title – Care Home Stories

• Subtitle – Aging, Disability, and Long-Term Residential Care (Aging Studies)

• Editors – Sally Chivers, Ulla Kriebernegg

• Amanda Barusch’s Contribution – A chapter entitled “A Place for Dad: One Family’s Experience of For-Profit Care”

• Type – Book

• Publication Date – September 27, 2017

• Publisher – Transcript Publishing

• Medium – Paperback

• Available at – Amazon

• Link – https://a.co/d/80FRQpU

• Synopsis – Institutional care for seniors offers a cultural repository for fears and hopes about an aging population. Although enormous changes have occurred in how institutional care is structured, the legacies of the poorhouse still persist, creating panicked views of the nursing home as a dreaded fate. The paradoxical nature of a space meant to be both hospital and home offers up critical tensions for examination by age studies scholars. The essays in this book challenge stereotypes of institutional care for older adults, illustrate the changes that have occurred over time, and illuminate the continuities in the stories we tell about nursing homes.

Once

• Title – Once

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – General Fiction

• Type – Flash Fiction

• Publication Date – 2017

• Publisher – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine

• Medium – Literary Magazine

• Available at – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine (via Lucid Press)

• Link – https://pub.lucidpress.com/crackthespine222/#9qzH42zbXmYn

• Source Text:

  Once

  I was a girl not a nymph just a girl; a chapped-hands-pinning-sheets-in-the-breeze kind of girl with a secret love of soaring. Some girls, beloved of painters, gaze coy to the right, blue vein pulse at the temple and a single pearl. No, I was of the bouncing ones, cracked at the heel, pulling fish bones from my teeth, guzzling wine in the afternoon—intact, but not untouched. I soared, but I did not glide, and

  I never should have soared within sight of that bow-legged demigod with his bulging groin, and bulbous nose. He was not as artists draw him—smooth, clean, and symmetrical. No, he was randy as a porcupine with lead chains and that sibilant claim of affection. He found me charming in disorder, said he could see through my dress.

  Of course, I ran. Anyone would have, but no one was fast as I. I am a god! He screamed in my wake. He moaned, pled, and finally gave chase. My hair tangled and streaming, and no one fast as I, but he drew close and his fingers grazed my scattering hem. I called out to mother for rescue

  and my rescue began in the loamy space beneath my fingernails. Insidious tendrils lodged there, plunged into my skin, and sent fresh leaves out to reach for the glimmering sun. I sense their fanning still, in the ghosts of my fingertips. Rough tubers burst from my heels. Like blood hounds, they sought the most fragrant earth. Dragging my splintered body (twigs in my hair), they dove down to anchor my bleeding soles to the ground. Bark encased my breasts. The chords in my neck swelled and stiffened 'til my head bent back, eyes wide to sun and rain. Â My teeth clattered while the blood cooled in my veins. He stood clinging to my trunk.

  No one else noticed. It was so quick, or it was so slow. No one human could see.

  He's gone long ago. The spring sap flows and my leaves tremble. Tiny feet stream down the path below. My roots throb to their beat. The wind carries hints of skin and scented hair, as their warm sighs drift to the canopy.

  One comes close to pluck at an arrow someone whittled in my winter bark. Small, sturdy, with a rosemary essence, she leans on my trunk and kicks the ground. Echoes wave through the field. Then she pushes off and slips down the path, leaving a warm patch on my trunk.

  I groan, sway, and toss a leaf to light her way.

Three Days After

• Title – Three Days After

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Poetry

• Type – Poem

• Publication Date – 2015

• Publisher – The Legendary, Issue 66

• Medium – Magazine

• Available at – The Legendary (USA, defunct)

• Source Text:

  Three Days After

  I saw a chameleon fish mimic the colors and patterns of its surroundings so perfectly that only his twitching nose gave him away. No. Wait. It must have been a puppy, his twitching black nose the only clue he wasn’t a fish. Please forgive me, I am not myself. I keep thinking of water. My father was a sailor. With his hair tied back he could shoot the sun and take us to paradise. He threw a hook off the stern and fed us rainbow fish for dinner. He never did like dogs.

  “Bastante!” he yelled, “Enough!” when he’d had it. And when we fretted he said, “At ease, at ease,” and asked our mother, “Should we give them postre now?” It didn’t take us long to learn it meant dessert, or how to spell i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m. Please, I’d like more postre now. In that place they never gave him ice cream. I used to sneak it in. Chocolate, and he ate it with his fingers. Once I asked how he was, and Dad said, “Fit and ready for duty, sir!” Then he pointed at my step mother and said, “You know, I was once married to a woman with the same name as that one. Only the other one was much nicer.”

  I fell from a great height and was caught in a sling. A meadowlark sang, and the air rushed cool against my face. No. Wait. It must have been a raptor’s cry. Yes, a red tailed hawk dove past the naked tree where sparrows perched, waiting to tease her. My mother flew to Hawaii on one of the first Pan Am airplanes. It took a long time and she met a handsome man who was not my father.

  When I told my brother, he reminded me how after her shower, our mother puffed talcum powder all over herself. What a strange thing to remember when someone tells you your father is dead. She taught me to call chickens, a skill reserved for the women in our family.

• Audio

Sometimes Found by Night

• Title – Sometimes Found by Night

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Poetry

• Type – Poem

• Publication Date – 2015

• Publisher – The Legendary, Issue 66

• Medium – Magazine

• Available at – The Legendary (USA, defunct)

• Source Text:

  Sometimes Found by Night

  Paris, 1947

  He, too, was struck by the pervasive scent
  of onions and the ghastly cost of the war.

  They danced in a discothèque
  while deer strolled through the woods.

  He watched her drink coffee
  with a sugar cube between her teeth.

  He invited her for a walk, and she cried
  Stop! But it was only a seagull.
  Not a cockatoo.

  They enjoyed eavesdropping in cafes.
  Once, on the street, he heard a soldier ask,

  What day is this? And
  she replied, I don’t know. I don’t live here.

  He worried that she might find him dull,
  she had, after all, no gift for opera.

  She said he swallowed loudly.
  But not all the time.

  There was a certain comfort.

  Later, he would ask his bride,
  Why hyacinths? And
  she would reply, Because marigolds smell like dying bees.

• Audio

Barefoot Desert

• Title – Barefoot Desert

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Poetry

• Type – Poem

• Publication Date – October 16, 2014

• Publisher – Stone Path Review (UK)

• Medium – Magazine

• Available at – Stone Path Review (via MagCloud)

• Link – https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/823370?__r=322616

• PDF – Stone Path Review Fall 2014

• Source Text:

  Barefoot Desert

  Morning clouds flame but the cold hills

  insist on shadow. Faces of indigo stone

  clutch the snow in their creases. A child’s feet could still

  warm the earth, wake the meadow, and know

  the path of each skylit memory. Instead, she will

  tiptoe away from the dark mountain frown

  to dance barefoot in the desert sun

  and share honey dates with a black-necked swan.

• Audio

Awake

• Title – Awake

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Poetry

• Type – Poem

• Publication Date – October 16, 2014

• Publisher – Stone Path Review (UK)

• Medium – Magazine

• Available at – Stone Path Review (via MagCloud)

• Link – https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/823370?__r=322616

• PDF – Stone Path Review Fall 2014

• Source Text:

  Awake

  Winter sunrise kindles a tender
  mist as the bell bird call
  punctures
  your dreamscape.
  A breeze promises coffee and toast
  but
  your smoky hair and goose down
  still hold the night’s heat.
  And the curtains whisper,
  “Not yet!”

• Audio

The True Shape of Raindrops

• Title – The True Shape of Raindrops

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – General Fiction

• Type – Short Story

• Publication Date – September 2014

• Publisher – Mulberry Fork Review (International)

• Medium – PDF

• Available at – amandabarusch.com

• Link – XXX

• Synopsis – An autobiographically-inspired piece about a family (and their ghost) who go on a raft trip in the wilds of Alaska.

• Endorsements:

  • “The True Shape of Raindrops is a poignant and moving story of friendship and sorrow, beautifully told. Amanda Barusch’s graceful writing explores the aftermath of loss and the bonds of friendship that unite us.” 

    —Cynthia Lim, Author of Wherever you are: A memoir of love, marriage, and brain injury.

  • “Rafting through remote Alaska with the ghost of your best friend - Barusch takes us deep into troubled waters. Read this when you have wanderlust. Read it when you’re thinking about leaving your husband.”

    —Kit Hodge, author of Fairy Tales With Killer Shoes

  • “Barusch’s finely etched characters confront the fragility of life and the persistence of grief as they raft through the Alaska wilderness. This story gives us a vivid glimpse into loss, adventure, love and hope.”

    —Erica Baum, Independent Scholar

My Clan

• Title – My Clan

• Author – Amanda Barusch

• Genre – Poetry

• Type – Poem

• Publication Date – August 6, 2014

• Publisher – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Issue 122. (Anthologized in 2014 Crack the Spine Edition and 2015 Edition of Utah Sings) (USA)

• Medium – Magazine

• Available at – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine (via ISSUU)

• Link – https://issuu.com/crackthespine/docs/issue_122

• PDF – My Clan

• Source Text:

  My Clan

  In my clan the babies ride horses,
  snug between saddle and womb,
  manes flying loose in the coarse

  sea breeze. We fall. We lick our wounds.
  We tumble, again.
  Women shriek and beat the drums

  as echoes wash over. The men,
  starved and impatient, die young.
  But we know where to go when

  the wind shifts. We know which vein
  to tap. We know when the hawk descends
  on a twisted course, and the red pine

  bends to earth, that silence is at hand.
  Stars glare down on thin clouds and drifting sand.

• Audio

Foundations of Social Policy

• Title – Brooks/Cole Empowerment Series: Foundations of Social Policy (Book Only)

• Subtitle – Social Justice in Human Perspective (5th Edition)

• Author – Amanda Smith Barusch

• Genre – Social Work, Social Services & Welfare, Social Policy, Arts & Humanities, Education, Public Policy

• Type – Book

• Publication Date – March 27, 2014

• Publisher – Cengage Learning

• Medium – eTextbook, Hardcover

• Available at – Amazon

• Link – https://a.co/d/2J0v03G

• Synopsis – Reflecting an emerging consensus that social justice is a primary mission of the social work profession, this innovative text provides a thorough grounding in policy analysis with extensive coverage of policy practice and a unique emphasis on the broad issues and human dilemmas inherent in the pursuit of social justice. Organized in four parts, the book introduces several philosophical perspectives on what constitutes social justice, and identifies the values and assumptions reflected in contemporary policy debates. Part I provides a framework for policy analysis and policy practice, as well as foundation content related to the structure and role of government in the United States. Part II offers a theoretical framework for determining when a personal disadvantage is considered a social problem. It then focuses on social problems that constitute widely shared risks, including poverty, physical illness, mental illness, and disability. Part III introduces theories of discrimination and oppression and explores the challenges faced by vulnerable populations, including people of color, gays and lesbians, children, women, working Americans, and the elderly. Part IV offers a "Glance to The Future," examining emerging policy issues such as inequality, incarceration as a means of social control, globalization, and international governance.