It began in a bedroom in Naples, Florida, when a misbehaving punk teenager named Tom Gabel, armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a headful of anarchist politics, landed on a riff. Gabel formed Against Me! and rocketed the band from its scrappy beginnings-banging on a drum kit made of pickle buckets-to a major-label powerhouse that critics have called this generation's The Clash. Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! has been one of punk's most influential modern bands, but also one of its most divisive. With every notch the four-piece climbed in their career, they gained new fans while infuriating their old ones. They suffered legal woes, a revolving door of drummers, and a horde of angry, militant punks who called them "sellouts" and tried to sabotage their shows at every turn. But underneath the public turmoil, something much greater occupied Gabel-a secret kept for 30 years, only acknowledged in the scrawled-out pages of personal journals and hidden in lyrics. Through a troubled childhood, delinquency, and struggles with drugs, Gabel was on a punishing search for identity. Not until May of 2012 did a Rolling Stone profile finally reveal it: Gabel is a transsexual, and would from then on be living as a woman under the name Laura Jane Grace. Tranny is the intimate story of Against Me!'s enigmatic founder, weaving the narrative of the band's history, as well as Grace's, with dozens of never-before-seen entries from the piles of journals Grace kept. More than a typical music memoir about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll-although it certainly has plenty of that-Tranny is an inside look at one of the most remarkable stories in the history of rock.

    Young Kyle struggles to make it through the school day without being noticed, but others intend to make him the center of attention.

    In this remarkable book, Jackson Shultz records the stories of more than thirty Americans who identify as transgender. They range in age from 15 to 72; come from twenty-five different states and a wide array of racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds; and identify across a vast spectrum of genders and sexualities.Giving voice to a diverse group of individuals, the book raises questions about gender, acceptance, and unconditional love. From historical descriptions of activism to personal stories of discrimination, love, and community, these touching accounts of gender transition shed light on the uncharted territories that lie beyond the gender binary. Despite encounters with familial rejection, drug addiction, and medical malpractice, each account is imbued with optimism and humor, providing a thoughtful look at the daily joys and struggles of transgender life.

    Peaches is an unusual boy with an unusual school project -- he's going to spend his semester exploring gender roles in high school by living as a girl.

    If you are a transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) teen, you may experience unique challenges with identity and interpersonal relationships. In addition to experiencing common teen challenges such as body changes and peer pressure, you may be wondering how to express your unique identity to others. The Gender Quest Workbook incorporates skills, exercises, and activities from evidence-based therapies—such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)—to help you address the broad range of struggles you may encounter related to gender identity, such as anxiety, isolation, fear, and even depression. Despite outdated beliefs, gender no longer implies being simply male or female, but rather a whole spectrum of possibilities. This fun, engaging workbook is designed specifically for teens like you who want to explore the concept of gender and gender identity and expression—whether you already identify as TGNC or are simply questioning your gender identity. The activities in this book will help you explore your identity internally, interpersonally, and culturally. And along the way, you’ll learn how to effectively express yourself and make informed decisions on how to navigate your gender with family, friends, classmates, and coworkers. The book also includes chapters on sex and dating, balancing multiple identities, and how to deal with stressful challenges when they arise.The Gender Quest Workbook also features a brief downloadable guide for clinicians that explains ways professionals can better serve gender-expansive youth. The guide will address ways to help youth working with gender identity build resilience against gender minority stress, among other topics.This book has been selected as an Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Book Recommendation—an honor bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives.

    Much admired in manuscript by writers from Kathy Acker to Neil Gaiman, it has never seen print until now... Funny and terrifying by turns, and full of glimpses of other lives, it is the story of how beautiful Natasha persuades clever Annabelle to run away from her life and have adventures, more adventures than either of them quite meant her to have...‘Tiny Pieces is fucking brilliant. A certain classic, a definitive portrait of trans outside the niceties of middle class daydreams. Brava, sister mine.’ -- Kate Bornstein, writer and activist)‘Even now I find it hard to put into words quite how moving and marvellous I found it. It's an astonishing, troubling book; scalpel-sharp; brittle; bleak and brave. I feel sure it will upset a great number of people in all the right ways. In fact, I hope it does: literature should be a call to arms, not a sleeping-pill. Congratulations on bringing this story out of the dark.’ -- Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat and The Gospel of Loki

    What do you do when you live in a moldering unfinished mansion with a disappointed megalomaniac father and a mother who can’t stay conscious long enough to cook her own dinner? Maybe you run.This touching, raw new novel-in-verse follows our poet-protagonist through the parks, bars, and punk houses of Baltimore as she tries to escape her family and build a community for herself.

    She's pleased (but not surprised) that her questing friends turn out to be just as loyal and true as any princess could want.

    Forged from the ceaseless grappling match with life, living, identity, obligations, duty, home & selfhood, the poems in this striking collection are a libretto of what survives, what is elusive, what transforms or transmogrifies, and what remains primal & elemental.”–Justin Chin, Author of Gutted, and Bite Hard“Sharp-eyed, witty, passionate and just, a lament for trans losses that is also somehow a celebration of life, this book made me cry and then laugh and then do something that was both at once. It is an important contribution to our literature and also that rare thing, a book of poetry you won’t be able to put down.”–Cat Fitzpatrick, Poetry Editor, Topside Press

    He doesn’t feel strongly about anything; he doesn’t really feel anything much. Not like his best friend Mark Thompson, who perhaps feels things too strongly. But Mike considers himself just a regular guy; nothing special. Then their high school announces an Opposite Day, where students can come dressed as the opposite of what they are—nerds can be jocks, jocks can be nerds, and so on. Mark has an idea: Since he and Mike are just regular guys, they should do the opposite and show up as regular girls. Nothing special. Mike is reluctant but with the help of two girls, Mark and Mike get the clothes to become two regular girls—and it would just be for Opposite Day, right? And then everything would go back to the way it was, right? Mark sails through happily but Mike is troubled, tied up in knots. The whole ‘regular girl’ thing—why did it feel almost … normal? But his definition of ‘normal’ is rocked as his own normal world comes apart. His father seems to be somebody completely different from the man Mike had known. And then Mike learns that his parents’ marriage is disintegrating. And then Mark isn’t spending time with Mike anymore. And now everything seems so opposite to the way it was … A Transgender Young Adult book by Karin Bishop.

     This is a marvelously candid memoir of gender and acceptance; one that breaks down many complex issues, though it is her enchanting British humor that makes them such a joy to read. Inner and outer recognition is uncovered through dating debacles, painful family discussions, and trips to Victoria’s Secret. Challenges of pesky pronouns, passport humiliation and underwhelming cup sizes test her spirit yet her charismatic wit never wanes. There are laugh out loud moments, heart-wrenching ones too as she tussles with the balance between he and she, and how gender is perceived—for herself and for those around her. Back in the 80s and 90s Chase was a globe-trotting DJ who played exotic clubs in the Middle East and southern China, then an indie music radio host in Hong Kong. However, having played at rooftop parties for sheiks, been a maestro in the clubs, and a household name on the airwaves, it was only after relocating to New York that the real journey began. Why was he feeling like a she? The feeling wouldn’t go away. Then the first cross-dressing steps into Manhattan as a woman. Embarrassing wigs, stares on the subway, and heels an inch from respectability. Through painful, unexpected, and hilarious experiences, a tipping point of gender was reached. But how to tell those who knew her as a man before? Friends were both won and lost, but the biggest announcement was over a cup of Earl Grey: the excruciating moment of disclosure with her 80-year old mother. The devolution and rebuilding of that amazing relationship is one of the most heart-rending threads of this book. Humor drives her forward as she explores the New York dating life as a woman. She gets thrown out of a strip club as a perceived threat to business, initiates her first bikini moment, and has a love match at the US Open Tennis Championships. Puberty happens for a renewed time in a different gender, and with that, dodgy fashion choices and overzealous make-up. She was a 16 year old girl in her 40s. As she considers life changing surgery, one moment of epiphany ensues, yet clarity comes with a kick. What would be next? There are martinis on top of the world, the pyramids at dawn, and high-speed motorbike rides through Asian back streets, but Tea and Transition is far more than a globetrotting travelogue or another tale of a right-soul-in-the-wrong-body. This is a wonderfully personal journey through places beyond the physical. Of change and the human spirit, love and family values, and how one man became one woman.

    He writes original songs, plays lead guitar, and wears his death metal front-man persona like armor. With an excellent drummer and a talented bassist, his band, KnifeSwitch, has what it takes to succeed, if they can just catch a break. But it’s been a long road already, and there’s still a mountain left to climb. Carlos isn’t looking for anything more in his personal life than an occasional hook-up with a hot guy, preferably outside the less-than-gay-friendly metal scene.Nate Goldstein has no intention of dating a musician. His twin brother fronts a band, and he knows band guys are all busy, broke, and obsessed with their music. But Carlos catches his artist’s eye. Nate is wary - he has a history of picking the wrong guys. Still, he might be willing to break some personal rules to find out what’s behind Carlos’s dark gaze and imaginative lyrics.Getting together the first time is easy and fun. The second time is more complicated. And when music, ambition, and personalities clash, the guys will have to decide if they have a future worth fighting for.This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love is an Open Road" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story. Dear Author,I was sent to the US at the age of 10 by my father who could not accept me. You see I was misgendered at birth and I started fighting against my body at a young age. My father sent me to live with my cousin’s family along with enough money to pay my way for a few years. Little does he know he helped to fund the many surgeries and hormones to fulfill my dream of having my outside gender match the gender my brain has always known myself to be.What do you think Author? Not many know of his secret. He is a gay man. Is he in a gang? Is he in a band? How will he find love? How will he be accepted?Photo Description: A young bare-chested man stands staring boldly outward from below his raised arms, hands pressed together in his black hair, elbows winged out, colorful dagger tattoos on his forearms. Another tattoo near his neck forms swirl of dark curves with “Boy” over his left collarbone. His biceps are strong, his stomach and pecs flat, his nipples small, above a thin treasure trail leading downward. Below each nipple is the unmistakable, long-healed scar of top surgery.This story may contain sexually explicit content and is intended for adult readers. It may contain content that is disagreeable or distressing to some readers. The M/M Romance Group strongly recommends that each reader review the General Information section before each story for story tags as well as for content warnings.

    

    Full of tragedy, absurdity and emojis, these delicious poems remind us that even when love keeps veering in every direction, we should never stop chasing it.

    She and I were both at a convening hosted by the Arcus Foundation, where she is on the board. We were doing our introductions--there were Transgender activists from all across the country in the room--and she said, "The T is no longer going to be silent," and I immediately thought, That's going to be the title of my next book.Visibility in the Trans community is increasing dramatically. Ultimately, this book is an effort to create understanding and awareness of a marginalized community. A community that is invisible to most and vilified by some. A community that is traumatized by the constant threat of violence as well as unemployment, housing instability, and discrimination in multiple areas of social and economic life. A community that is also creative, beautiful, and resilient.

    Set in New York City in 2001, we follow Phillip—a gender subversive drag king in search of grace and magic—through rich, sad, humorous language that is singularly Shelley Marlow's. Kevin Killian writes, "I've been dying for something first rate and innovative and have found this in Marlow's writing. Her hero, Phillip/Philomena...is the most enchanting and elusive central character in a novel since Cassandra in Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. While many have compared Marlow to the late Jane Bowles, I would agree if only there was a loving and empathetic Jane Bowles, and now there is and here is her book.

    Submissive queers go to alleys to suck cock, get bent over the bathroom sink by a handsome stranger, choose to face their fears, have their Daddy orchestrate a gang bang in the park, and get their dream gender-play scene—tied to a sling in an accessible dungeon. Dominants find hope and take risks, fall hard and push edges, get fucked and devour the fear and tears that their sadist hearts desire. Within these 24 stories, you will meet queers who build community together, who are careful about how they play with power, who care deeply about consent. You will meet trans and genderqueer folks who are hot for each other, who mentor each other, who do the kind of gender play that is only possible with other trans and genderqueer folks. This is SHOW YOURSELF TO ME. Get ready for a very wild ride. --- Introduction by Annabeth LeongADVANCE PRAISE FOR SHOW YOURSELF TO ME “It would be easy to say that Show Yourself to Me is an amazing work and that Xan is an incredible author. The fact is that Xan hasn’t just written a great book, but a book that changes what erotica can and should be. Prepare yourself: from this point on, erotica is measured by what Xan has done and will do in the future.” —M. Christian, author, editor, publisher “Xan West’s work is fierce and absolutely fearless.” —Simon Sheppard “At last! An entire collection of radically queer, deeply transformative erotica by Xan West! No one chronicles queer kinkiness with more passion, skill, courage, and talent.” —Barbara Carrellas, author of Urban Tantra and Ecstasy is Necessary “In Show Yourself to Me, you will read erotica about characters that are queer, trans, POC, fat, some with chronic pain and/or various dis/abilities (and more). Where has that happened before? Reading erotica that reflects so much of who I am and who my partner(s) are is pretty mind-blowing and not something I’ve ever seen published. Xan West writes stories about desires that are often stigmatized and silenced, and shows how purely erotic they are, which is amazing, beautiful, and, frankly, refreshing.” —Wyatt Riot, sex educator “I love this collection. It’s wonderfully intense in the best possible way. I adored the content warnings in the front. What a great idea!” —Alisha Rai, author of Serving Pleasure, Bedroom Games, and A Gentleman in the Street “[Xan West’s Show Yourself to Me is] insightful and intense, diverse and deliciously hot, and full of the deep rituals and spiritual, sexual yearnings of kink. Xan West writes it the way most kinky folks dream of living it.” —Carol Queen, PhD, author of The Leather Daddy and the Femme “Xan West’s work sends shock waves through the imagination that will send any reader over the edge into total sexual oblivion. A writer to watch, love, and be enticed by.” —Shane Allison, editor of Backdraft: Fireman Erotica, In Plain View: Gay Public Sex, and Black Fire: Gay African American Erotica “Xan West’s Show Yourself to Me proves that the most important sex organ is the brain. Smart, hot, intense stories that are some of the finest erotic fiction around, [they] are so visceral and reach into you so deep they imprint like a new lover. They’ll give you flashbacks to kinks you didn’t know you had.” —Cecilia Tan, Circlet Press “Xan West’s gorgeous stories breathe new life into the literary milieu of classic BDSM erotica. They are at turns frightening and earnest, but always true to form and completely hot. Show Yourself to Me is a veritable sexy switch of a collection, and is sure to become well-loved and worn out by queer leather lovers of every size, gender, and genre.” —Lyric Seal “Stunning stories of power, transformation, and real queers from one of the most talented erotica writers, period" —Sinclair Sexsmith, Sugarbutch.net

    When her grandmother passes away, she returns home, and while she intends to stay only for the funeral, her grandmother has other plans - from the grave. Her will states that Lydia must remain in Prairie Town for six months in order to give her family and her old town a chance to get to know the new her, the real her.Lydia has had years to adjust to long hair, summer dresses, and nail polish, but she understands her family will need time to get reacquainted with a daughter they've never known and a sister they've missed terribly. Anticipating the worst, as she always has, Lydia's feelings about her old town begin to change when she meets her brother's best friend, Callum. Callum is kind and more accepting than she could have ever imagined, and she's falling for him.When her 180 days are over, will she be able to say good-bye to the family she's missed so much? Will she survive her mother's endless intolerance? Can she really leave the man who acknowledges her past and still wants her?A note from the author: This is a story about a transgender girl and her journey to acceptance and love when she returns to her hometown. Within this book you will be introduced to characters who color outside the lines, and that's just how they like it. I implore you to give them a chance because we are all beautiful and unique in our own ways, and we all deserve love and happiness.

    The book is an ambient novella that explores what Wilson Harris calls "community-in-creator" by merging from-scratch text with found text and asking "what exactly is the difference?" By treating their own from-scratch text as though a stranger had written it, abreu shows how little we know ourselves, and performs an authorial petite mort in honor of their friend, who died by suicide in 2013.

    But these women are far from satisfied with mere survival.Whether fooling around with boys, dancing till sunrise, or just putting together a really bioluminescent outfit, they are sharply funny, audaciously poised, and recklessly honest. A body would hardly know they are only ever a stumble from disaster

    But how long can that last? From new students, to double dates, to therapy sessions, to the dreaded Valentine’s Day, it looks our heroine and her friends still have yet more trials to face. So be prepared to laugh and cry and grow up right alongside them.Volume 3 includes from chapters 15 through 22 as they are seen online at DeviantArt, SmackJeeves, and Comic Fury. Also included are an exclusive bonus chapter and material that won’t be seen online.

    He has a secret part of himself that he has not shared with anyone, not even his wife. Scott's life is changed the day that his wife catches him dressing in her clothes. The crossdressing is only the tip of the iceberg that is Scott's secret. Scott has other desires as well, darker desires, and so it turns out does his wife. In A Sissy Diary we follow Scott as he becomes immersed in these darker desires with the help of his 'Auntie Lois' and 'Uncle Cliff.'

     Two best friends living next door to each other since they were five. One matures to become the outward definition of normal, and one struggles but falls short. Together they start a journey of discovery and uncover a meaning far greater than the socially popular interpretation, and through their mutual caring, come to understand the deeper conflicts facing those who fall short of accepted norms. This is the story of their lives together, as they try to fit a definition that eludes more than our society acknowledges ...how their friendship turns into a love that ends up defining their lives. A story about what unconditional love and acceptance truly mean as they spend the rest of their lives trying to fit the definition of normal. This 2 book story is about unconditional love and an example of how to love someone different. Come take a closer look at a greater definition of normal. The journey might just help you release a current unfounded paradigm or two. Adult version. Contains scenes of intimacy

    The author described it as a "troubling of the habitual life story at the edge of the recognizable." "At night after reading kari edwards there are giants walking through my sleep and I wake up to width and height dysporia where there is no doubt that the very best poets end our romance with the proportional world. An alert fluency cracks our reading glasses, this is the point edwards informs us, '--your amount has automatically been deducted from your slavery . . . this message has been brought to you by coke . . . the drink the world loves . . . have a coke on us . . . bzzzzzzzzz" It is not a cynical world but a sad confused one, and this incredibly insightful soul gave us some of the finest writing to keep proving it." --CA Conrad"Hurtling through icons of patriarchal pin-up heroes and institutions--the narrator in edwards' apocalypse sends up every dick and striver in hir path. This is survival on the edge of suicide, a dystopian send-up of massive proportions. edwards' reality is comic, biting and tragic, filled with vengeful goddesses, where the only stable ground is a no-holds-barred anger and a survivor's persistence. Hope lies in an insistent polyphony that rises above the violent linear world of bureaucracies and binaries trying to insert themselves into every orifice. This is no easy romp--it is a battle, a grinder, ultimately and explosion where the limitless prevails." --Samuel Ace"kari edwards's succubus in my pocket is a masterwork against mastering, a tarrying recursive, fretting over how to write from life when life is so relentlessly displaced by its commodity form, a palinode to identity from its extimite extrusions, sloughing on and off simulacra, flaying the skim off 'events, ' relooping seriality and tracing narrative's affective ruses and too predictable disappointments. Talking to the taxman and the war machine and sex gender and the symbolic about poetry while turning a trick or laying down to hallucinate a line of flight rather than consolidate a happy story we might now call homonormativity or neoliberalism or white supremacy, SUCCUBUS is a most delicate and pissed and sad inhabitation of the available options and of their exorbitantly vital refual." --Trish Salah

    She explains the basics of gender identity, sexual orientation, puberty, puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and gender affirming surgeries. She shares years of her patients’ wisdom and practical information on getting through every day in the best way possible—from coming out to parents, to school issues, to coping with depression, to love and sex. Why is this book important? We know that transgender kids and their families need specialized information. Alarmingly, the suicide attempt rate among trans youth is close to half! This book is intended to give gender non-conforming kids some of the information they need to grow to be happy, productive, loving and loved. It’s intended to provide the information we need as parents, educators, and health care providers to do better with and for our kids.

    Beating cancer was hard enough, but the prospect of being bullied again is almost too much to bear. All she wants is a fresh start in a place where no one knows her past.When she's invited to attend a secretive boarding school far from home, she dares to hope for that new beginning. Questions of how she got into a school she never applied to quickly evaporate when she arrives on campus. Who has time to worry when everyone has private rooms, tomorrow's technology, and crush-worthy classmates?Still, something about her new school doesn't feel quite right to Izzy. Too many classmates have mysterious near-death survival stories for it to be a coincidence. And there's the nagging concern that someone at Leit Academy may have a strange power over the students. With help from her new friends, Izzy must use her wits and courage to discover what lies behind Leit Academy's facade, all while overcoming bigotry, the pain of love, and her own villainous hormones.

    This poetic, journalistic memoir shines an intersectional beacon on the ambiguity and complexity of mixed heritage, transgender, and disability experience, and offers an intimate window into how current legislative and policy battles impact the lives of transgender people. Whether navigating the men's locker room like a "stealth trans Houdini," accessing lifesaving health care, or appreciating his son's recognition of him as a "transformer," Wilkinson compellingly illustrates the unique, difficult, and sometimes comical experiences of transgender life.A seasoned public health consultant and cultural competency trainer, Wilkinson provides practical tools and resources to help community health organizations, educational institutions, and businesses create LGBTQ- and trans-affirming systems. Innovative, moving, and accessible, this multifaceted memoir explores the liberation of finding one's voice in a world that prescribes silence, and offers a fresh look at ways to systemically affirm diversity throughout society.

    From lines such as, “I saw an ant carrying / a dead ant I had killed, / he could barely take it / & paced in slow, irregular circles” and “In the fifth piece of morning when we entered our apartment for the first time / after a long time away, we entered / a movie set made exactly to look / like our apartment” and “When the sun pushed out morning, I was carrying you / in my teeth. I was a she-wolf & you / were my cub & I didn’t know,” Woods anchors the reader in a delicate poetic balance, one that captures the unspoken thoughts and emotions felt in the darkness between breaths and the exhale of reprieve mid-embrace with the one you love.This is avalanche: poetry that stacks in masterful stanzas to show you the way. “This dirt I have / in my pockets is a promise / about wings we had & lost.”

    As images of same-sex intimacy have become an ordinary part of the Western mainstream and discourse, Haritaworn shows that politicians and pundits have used that acceptance as a weapon to attack “Muslim homophobia” to promote their Islamophobic agendas. Haritaworn argues that this is simply the newest wrinkle in a long history of the deliberate misuse of colonized and racialized intimacies, and he raises provocative questions about how we should think about identity and how we should enact it in political practice. What, he asks, would it mean to really decolonize gender and sexuality?

    Here's my theory: I've always been a butch. When I was a child, it was called being a "tomboy" (also known as "embarrassing my mother"). Back then, I liked to think I was a boy-girl hybrid, perhaps grown from special heirloom seeds. Later in life, I came out as a lesbian, which explained my fondness for flannel and sensible shoes, as well as my masculine ways. Still, something wasn't quite right. I watched spectator-like as my hair got shorter and my clothes started coming from the opposite side of the department store. When someone called me "sir" for the first time, I realized I had unintentionally crossed over into foreign territory -- that sliver of space that exists in the middle place between the absolutes of boy and girl. Leaving Normal: Adventures in Gender is for anyone who has ever felt different, especially those who have found themselves living in the gender margins without a rule book.

    With writing and artwork by 10 women who detransitioned from living as trans men (FTM), this anthology offers stories, analysis, and resources for women who struggle with disidentification from their female reality.

    As the number of transgender people ‘coming out’ reaches levels we never before dreamed of, author Kristin Lyseggen hopes this book will shed some light on the needs of people locked up twice in their lives. She started writing this book before we learned that Private Bradley Manning was Chelsea Manning and before we knew about the popular Netflix TV show Orange Is the New Black. In real life, most women with gender identity issues, when jailed, are put in male prisons with notorious predators. The only option for many of them in order to survive is to live isolated in cages, or become sex slaves for other inmates. This book project led Kristin from the ‘war zone’ in East Oakland, California, to the run-down, chaotic intensity of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco; she traveled from a boundary breaking Transgender Health Conference in Bangkok to a clandestine LGBTQI advocacy conference in Nairobi, Kenya; from conservative Rome, Georgia to Montgomery, Alabama and to a maximum security state prison in the Central Valley of California. Without exception the stories she encountered during this project were diverse and different from one another in ways that were surprising and often disturbing. Kristin was introduced to an almost inconceivable struggle heaped upon the usual stories of people incarcerated in US prisons. In spite of the conditions of their lives, they taught her that what landed them behind bars, and the contradictory feelings one has about their crimes, there could be the possibility of redemption.