After surviving a school shooting, English professor Megan Doney was traumatized and adrift. Rather than hardening her heart and life, she wrote Unarmed: An American Educator's Memoir. An insightful response to American gun violence and illusions of public and private safety, this memoir is about how to live with an open heart, alive to luck, learning, and love.

This short, literary memoir is a personal response to a school shooting at New River Community College in Christiansburg, Virginia. Even more so, Unarmed: An American Educator's Memoir is a must-read for educators at all levels, for college students, for parents, and for all of us who think deeply and widely about American society.

Winner of the 2024 Nonfiction Prize from the Washington Writers' Publishing House.