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Creative Writing

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The Retreat

In Progress: The Retreat, a novel about a psychotherapist and six women that she takes on a weekend retreat. 


The Retreat takes the reader on a journey with Monica, a 38 year-old therapist as she takes six clients on a weekend retreat in the mountains of New England. Doesn’t everyone want a therapist who’s figured it all out? Unfortunately for Monica, she has her own relationship problems and past issues bubble up. Ah, the pressure of wanting to seem perfect, while being acutely aware of every defect!

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I am currently seeking representation for my novel. Please contact me to discuss.

Rivers of Life

"I appreciated how his life was grounded by the river. What was I grounded by, my rootless self, a nomad of sorts, not really belonging anywhere that I called home in the same way that David did? I remembered, then, a river that I knew as a child. I hadn’t thought about that river in years, the smell of it, musky and noxious, yet somehow fresh at the same time, the dampness on my bare arms from the hot moist air, cooled by the breeze, the sounds of the lapping waves, the ships far out in the distance."
 

Owens-Manley, J. (2023). Rivers of Life, The Forum: a Journal of the Alaska Humanities Forum, Spring/Summer Issue.

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The way of transition

​Owens-Manley, J. (2022). The way of transition: Listening from stillness. Journal of the Conference for Global Transformation, pp. 76-81. 

ACADEMIC BOOKS & ARTICLES

Beginning with my Ph.D. program (Social Work, Dec. 1999), I began writing and publishing largely about social issues and policy advocacy. Beginning with TANF legislation impacting women receiving public welfare, I studied front-line workers and the factors impacting their decisions, including organizational culture of public welfare agencies.

 

Domestic violence policy was a focus for me early on, and then I discovered my outrage with the war in Bosnia. I co-authored a book based on interviews with Bosnian refugees, and we wrote several chapters with other authors we met at conferences. Even within my academic writing, some work, such as "The Leper Keepers" included more of my personal story.

Coughlan, R., Owens-Manley, J. (2006). Bosnians in upstate New York: New communities, new cultures. New York: Springer Publishers. 

Bosnian Refugees
in America

The book tells the story of the psychological, socio-cultural, and economic adaptations of the Bosnian refugees to Utica, New York.

 

It considers the effects of the trauma of war, the cultural differences and dislocation that are a part of their experience, the strategies they have used for successful adjustment, and the obstacles they still face in reconciling personal hopes and dreams, much of it told in the words of the Bosnians themselves.

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Book Chapters

Owens-Manley, J. (2009).  Bosnians in upstate New York.  The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

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Owens-Manley, J.  (2003). The Leper Keepers: Front-line Workers and the Key to Education for Poor Women.  In V. Adair & S. Dahlberg, eds., Women, poverty, and the promise of education in America.  Philadelphia:  Temple University Press, Teaching/Learning Social Justice Series, Lee Anne Bell, Series Editor. 

 

Coughlan, R., Owens-Manley, J.  (2002).  The new face of immigration: Bosnian refugees in transition.  In J. Pula, ed., Ethnic Utica.  Utica, New York: Oneida County Historical Society. 

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Coughlan, R., Owens-Manley, J. (2003).  Adaptation during cross-cultural transitions: Bosnians in upstate New York.  In Fure, Jorunn and Line Alice Ytrehus (eds.),  Crossing borders, changing minds?  Bergen, Norway: Kulturstudier, The Norwegian Research Council, Programme for Cultural studies and The Norwegian Academic Press.  

 

Coughlan, R., Owens-Manley, J.  (2005). Surviving war, starting over: Bosnians resettle in upstate New York.  In Homeland wanted: Interdisciplinary perspectives on refugee resettlement in the west.  V. Colic-Peisker & P. Waxman, (Eds.) New York:  Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 127-145.   

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