Live Nude Girl

Kathleen Rooney is the author of Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America, now in its second edition (University of Arkansas Press), as well as the poetry collections Oneiromance (An Epithalamion), Something Really Wonderful, and That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness, the latter two written collaboratively with Elisa Gabbert. Her essay ""Live Nude Girl"" was selected for Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers.

Kathleen Rooney boldly and bravely dissects what it means to disrobe in the name of art - and money. For anyone who wants to know why a woman would prefer to be nude rather than naked (and what the difference is), read Live Nude Girl and find out. - Rachel Kramer Bussel, editor of Best Sex Writing 2009 ""Though the title of Kathleen Rooney's Live Nude Girl seems to promise an external approach to the subject, modeling nude for art classes, the book itself is surprisingly introspective, learned, and thoughtful. While revealing what a nude model does, how she does it and why, what she feels and thinks while doing it, Rooney explores what her profession means to her personally and what it means and has meant to others. The writing is enticing, engaging, inviting, and the anecdotes it tells are irresistible."" - Peter Stitt, editor of The Gettysburg Review ""If Live Nude Girl caught your eye, promised, beckoned - good. Follow the enticement and you'll encounter the thrill of a rigorous and questioning mind in motion."" - Lia Purpura, author of On Looking