Shady Side Academy Senior School English teacher Linda Lee McDonald just published How Much the Body: Poems about Faith, a book of poetry that speaks to the contemporary struggle to hold onto faith in a turbulent world.

"This is my first publication of a book-length manuscript," McDonald said. "The poems are organized to create a sort of narrative arc that charts my personal faith journey from its beginning, to a time of doubt and skepticism to a confidence in my own belief system. While the flavor is Christianity, these poems are not dogmatic but allow for a spiritual dimension in the average human experience."

McDonald has taught English at the Senior School since 2007 and previously served as chair of the English Department. She also has served as the advisor to SSA's student newspaper since 2015. A former fiction instructor at the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts, McDonald has won teaching awards from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and from Humanities Texas, and has to her credit publications in literary magazines and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Before SSA, McDonald taught in Indiana, North Carolina and served as English Department chair at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy in Austin, Texas.