Paki S. Wright

Growing up in Greenwich Village in a group of radical Reichian bohemians -- as a sort of psychiatric guinea pig -- wasn't easy. My personal history and adolescent depression was impacted by McCarthyism and the government's persecution of Wilhelm Reich, a brilliant, prescient psychoanalyst who was on the Nazi death list in Europe and came to America to escape. Only it didn't work.

I tell the tale in my novel, "The All Souls' Waiting Room: A Black Comedy about Teen Suicide" which I started after a trip to Vienna. I was well-published by then (New York Times Book Review) and wrote the book to make sense of my experience, see if there were any nuggets of wisdom that could help other troubled teenagers, as I had been, as well as tell an amazing story.

Became a Buddhist about 20 years ago as a way to sort out the insanity of our woebegone world, and now edit an online journal called Bohemian Buddhist Review -- Buddhist wisdom meets contemporary culture -- check it out sometime.... Read More