Please Join editor Nan Bauer-Maglin and contributors, Mindy Lewis, Ronald E. Hellman, and Vicki Brietbart, for an afternoon of candid and insightful conversations about their new book, Loving Arrangements: Stories About Modern Living and Loving (Rutgers UP, June 2026).

Love songs and Hollywood romances make it all sound so simple: you find your soul mate, move in together, get married, never stray from the path of monogamy, and live happily ever after. But real life tends to be more complicated. Many couples pursue alternative living arrangements, and some even pursue alternative loving arrangements. 

Edited by Nan Bauer-Maglin and Daniel E. Hood, the twenty-nine personal essays in this collection offer a variety of perspectives and experiences with nontraditional relationships and forms of cohabitation. The contributors include married couples who live in separate cities and single people who find companionship through communes and cohousing. These essays also present varied outlooks on the practice and ethics of having multiple partners, with some embracing large polycules while others opt for “monogamish” relationships. Everyone has a different story to tell, from close friends living together to form a chosen family, to couples navigating the shifting boundaries of their relationship as one partner begins a gender transition. With contributors across generations and representing the full ethnic and cultural diversity of the United States, Loving Arrangements demonstrates the myriad ways that we live and love today.

NAN BAUER-MAGLIN is professor emerita at City University of New York. She has edited or coedited nine collections including, with Daniel E. Hood, Gray Love: Stories About Dating and New Relationships After 60, also published by Rutgers University Press.

DANIEL E. HOOD (not pictured) is a retired professor of sociology. He is the author of Redemption and Recovery: Parallels of Religion and Science in Addiction Treatment. 

Nan will be joined by a panel of three contributors to the collection:

Mindy Lewis [pictured left] made the shift from visual artist to writer with the publication of her memoir, Life Inside. Since 2004, she has taught creative nonfiction workshops at colleges, universities, independent writing programs, and online. A lifelong New Yorker, she lives in Manhattan with Teddy, her feisty Bichon Shih Tsu, and part time with Patrick, her amour français.

Ronald E. Hellman [center] is a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He celebrated thirty wonderful years with his husband in 2024. He is still stunned to have written a chapter of this nature at this later phase of life. He continues to search the psychiatric textbooks for guidance without much luck.

Vicki Breitbart [pictured right] has been a sexual and reproductive justice activist for more than fifty years. In the 1970s, Vicki focused on society’s obligation to provide for those who wanted to have children and raise them in an equitable and just society. Vicki’s more recent work and activism have centered on the provision of comprehensive women-centered health services as a human right. Vicki’s publications include books on education and parenting and articles on reproductive health and intimate partner violence.

And here are some early hot-takes:

Loving Arrangements is a beautifully curated, generous, and deeply human collection that captures the shifting landscape of intimacy with honesty, nuance, and grace. These courageous essays challenge old assumptions while illuminating the creativity with which people craft relationships that reflect their needs, values, and evolving identities. By bringing together voices across generations, cultures, and orientations, Bauer-Maglin and Hood highlight not only how love changes, but how we change with it. Moving and thought-provoking, this collection offers a refreshing celebration of the many ways people live, love, and belong in an increasingly complex world.”

-- Angelos Bollas ― author of Contemporary Irish Masculinities: Male Homosociality in Sally Rooney's Novels 

"A fascinating collection of personal essays that shines a light on the joys, complexities, and realities of doing relationships 'differently.’"

-- Ryan Scoats ― author of Understanding Threesomes: Gender, Sex, and Consensual Non-Monogamy

"Loving Arrangements is the book that says out loud what so many of us know privately: the old rulebook is cracking, and people are courageously writing new ones. This is a compassionate, smart, and deeply human collection that expands our understanding of love, intimacy, and commitment. For anyone rethinking their relationship structure, Loving Arrangements is a powerful guide to what modern love really looks like.”

-- Joe Kort ― author of Side Guys: It’s Still Sex Even If You Don’t Have Intercourse