Ordering Information

6 x 9, softcover, 144 pages, b/w images
ISBN: 978-1-942155-80-5

To order copies contact the publisher at 603-431-5667, or email media (@) perpublisher.com

Books will be available for purchase in September 2024.

Choose Joy: 27 Sunday Stories

by Susan Werner Thoresen
Illustrations by Keith Eveland

Excerpt from Choose Joy

Here are a few ways I’ve found to bring more joy into my life. I hope you find them helpful too.

Each of the stories, in its own way, is a tribute to family, friends, and living well—with purpose, resilience, and positivity.

Choose joy! It is worth the effort.

—Susan Werner Thoresen

Description

Susan Werner Thoresen worked with author and editor, Rebecca Rule, and a cadre of readers, to first select and then to shape twenty-eight essays on life, love, her family, and subjects she knew were important. Originally begun as a project to occupy Sunday writing times, the project moved into a manuscript that became the finished book over seven months—from the fall of 2023 into the spring of 2024.

Her friend of many years, the artist Keith Eveland, contributed interior sketches and a lovely oil painting for the cover art.

About the Author

Susan Werner Thoresen authored two books, The YoYo and the Piggy Bank, for young people, and Choose Joy: 28 Sunday Stories, completed shortly before her passing.

Thoresen is a graduate of Smith College and received a master of public administration degree from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. Her careers included metropolitan planning and financial planning (Morgan Stanley vice president), and co-founder and principal for the Thoresen Group, a multi-disciplinary consulting firm, created with her husband, Bob.

For all her serious endeavors, one of Thoresen’s great passions was humor and laughter. A lifelong comic book and comic strip reader, she was passionate about laughter and joy.

In her own words, she wasn’t a funny person. But she was a strong proponent for finding moments of happiness in daily life, dedicating chapters to the subject in Choose Joy.

Practicing gratitude was another of her daily pursuits to the end.

—Author bio excerpted from an article by Jeanne’ McCartin in Seacoastonline.com, 7/11/2024