Pamela Spiro Wagner Biography

The author of We Mad Climb Shaky Ladders, Poems, (CavanKerry Press 2009) Wagner lives with schizophrenia. She graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and attended medical school for one year. Despite having spent at least ten years of her life in psychiatric units and hospitals, she has won many awards, including a First Place in the 2001/2 International Poetry Competition sponsored by the BBC World Service. Her first book, co-authored with her twin sister, a psychiatrist, Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and their Journey Through Schizophrenia (St Martin's Press,2005) , won the national NAMI Outstanding Literature Award and was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, LA Weekly and Tikkun, among other places. Wagner has a second poetry manuscript, Learning To See In Three Dimensions, which is ready for publication. She is working on a sequel to the memoir.