Press Release

For Immediate Release
December 15, 2009
Sheryl Hayes
PH: 434-924-6562
FAX: 434-296-4714
Email: sheryl@virginia.edu

New Book Surviving War Offers Help After War Experience 

Charlottesville, VA.  Surviving War, a collection of poetry, essays, and photographs addressing war experience, has been released by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH). Surviving War is designed to help active duty soldiers and veterans understand and accept their experiences in war, and to ease their transition into civilian life. Editor in Chief Roberta Culbertson, director of the VFH’s Center on Violence & Community program, describes the book as reference for returning soldiers and those affected by war. Dr. Culbertson adds that others, especially families of soldiers, can benefit from Surviving War’s content. 

The poetry, essays, and photographs in Surviving War are nearly all by military personnel or their families, and encompass wars from WWI to Iraq and Afghanistan. Their reflections on violence and war and the persistence of the human spirit acknowledge the horrors and difficulties of war while also recognizing its place in the conduct of human affairs. 

Copies of this handsome, easily carried book are available free of charge to organizations serving veterans, including military chaplains, chaplaincy programs, social service agencies, and Warrior Transition Units at Army installations, by contacting the VFH (434-924-3296). Surviving War has also been published online in PDF format to increase its availability to soldiers, veterans, their families, and other readers, including those overseas.

Individual copies of the Surviving War books are also available through the distributor, www.lulu.com/product/paperback/surviving-war/5979032, and make excellent gifts.

Editor Roberta Culbertson received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Virginia and founded the Center on Violence & Community in Charlottesville, VA at the VFH. Years of research and conversations with war and violence survivors led Dr. Culbertson and her VFH team to publish Surviving War for the benefit of past, current and future soldiers seeking to understand their experiences with war and violence. 

The Center on Violence & Community was founded by Dr. Culbertson to show how the humanities—art, poetry, history, and philosophy—can be instrumental in understanding and healing the emotional wounds made by violence. The program, through the VFH, offers publications and educational opportunities to help people understand violence and to assist in healing from the emotional damage violence causes. 

The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities was created in 1974 to develop the civic, cultural, and intellectual life of the Commonwealth. From its inception, the VFH has remained dedicated to bringing the humanities into Virginia’s public life, assisting individuals and communities in their efforts to understand the past, confront issues in the present, and shape our common future. 

For more information on the VFH and the Violence & Community visit www.virginiafoundation.org