Publications
THE FIFTH CHAMBER
THE FIFTH CHAMBER is Anne’s debut memoir. Annie is pregnant with her first child and married to her beloved husband when he dies in a car accident on a mountain road. Annie must navigate single motherhood, mourning, and learning to love again. Crafted with lightning bolts of joy and sorrow, THE FIFTH CHAMBER is a tender and honest memoir about the dance of loss and life, and how grief can make the heart beat stronger than ever before. It’s more than a loss story. It’s a love story.
You can order at your local bookstore or at Amazon: THE FIFTH CHAMBER or Bookshop: THE FIFTH CHAMBER
Praise for THE FIFTH CHAMBER: “Anne Gudger's The Fifth Chamber is a book with a pulse that will remind you how the dance of grief and love lives in us all. As she weaves her way through life, death, love and longing, those struggles that threaten to overwhelm us are brought so close to the edge of beauty that they kiss. A shivering triumph. A brilliant heartsong.”
—Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of Thrust and Chronology of Water
"Startling, incisive, musical, Anne Gudger's story will reach inside your heart—and stay there. Grief is such an universal experience, and Anne takes us inside hers, showing how one person can walk through unimaginable loss. Our memories are our own, but in THE FIFTH CHAMBER, we find each other. This is a remarkable book."
—Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder
“Blues,” Barren Magazine
The “Blues” was Barren’s Flash CNF Editor pick: “Emotions leap off the page, with lyric language that is both dreamlike and achingly real.”
“Doors” won second place in Real Simple Magazine’s 2013 essay contest. “Doors” is Anne’s first published piece: an essay about her tragic first husband’s death, being widowed and pregnant at 28, crawling through the belly of grief, finding her way back to love. Love of self. Another husband. Another child. The doors she walked through. The doors she didn’t.
“The Life Jacket,” The Rumpus
“The Life Jacket”: an imperfect family, loving each other imperfectly.
“The Sieve,” Slippery Elm
“The Sieve”: a meditation on beauty, on wholeness, while wind whistles through the holes in the narrator.
“Beating Heart,” NAILED Magazine
“Beating Heart”: an editor’s choice in NAILED Magazine. Lyrical. Poetic. Hearts beating. A heart not beating.
“In Between,” Tupelo Press
“In Between”: a finalist in Tupelo Press’s winter contest, December 2017. A look at the liminal space between living and dying.
“If She Doesn’t See Them Too,” Entropy Magazine
“If She Doesn’t See Them Too” braids early widowhood, the veil between here and there, and grandma’s garden. Heartbreak and magic.
“Fish Boy,” Barren Magazine
“Fish Boy” swims into the world with the love of a mom and sister.
“Shrines. Relics. Bone.” Originally in Equinox. Republished in PANK.
Shrines, Relics. Bones. blends family love, the beauty of ocean and shrines and bones.
“Leaves in the Hall,” Sweet Lit
Leaves in the Hall: the hard and beautiful two handedness of grief through a second grader’s view. Originally published with Sweet Lit. Republished in Sunday Short Reads, November 2021.
“Wings,” Atticus Review
Wings: “At the Louvre. The winged goddess of Victory dominates the Daru staircase on the way to Mona Lisa. But I can skip Mona Lisa. It’s Nike I came for.”
“The Artist,” Citron Review
The Artist: “The artist layers mountain with meadow, craggy basalt grey rock, steel wool clouds, oyster clouds, whispers of duck egg blue sky.”
“He Was a C Scale Descending,” Bending Genres
He Was a C Scale Descending: “He was a C scale descending. An early Beatles song: sunbeams and summer rain and handholding.
I was all minor cords straying from middle C.”
“I Carry You in My Marrow,” Cutbank
I Carry You in My Marrow: A collection of bones stories.
“How to Prepare for Widowed,” Eastern Iowa Review
How to Prepare for Widowed: a guide to preparing for the impossible because there is no being prepared. Winner of the Maggie Award, 2021.
“Memory Waltz,” The Normal School
Memory Waltz: where Anne sits with her mom and her mom’s dementia, where she practices Be With while missing her mom: I miss the days when Mom’s memory was slipping and she could almost catch it.
