This lavish party with ball gowns, multi-tiered cakes, limousines, and extravagant meals is often as costly as a prom or a wedding. But many Latina girls feel entitled to this rite of passage, marking a girl's entrance into womanhood, and expect no expense to be spared, even in working-class families. Julia Alvarez explores the history and cultural significance of the "quince" in the United States, and the consequences of treating teens like princesses. Through her observations of a quince in Queens, interviews with other quince girls, and the memories of her own experience as a young immigrant, Alvarez presents a portrait of a rapidly growing multicultural phenomenon with an emphasis on the importance of celebrating Latina womanhood.

    These stories are about coming to terms with our animal natures, exploring the ways in which we might renegotiate our fractured relationship with the natural world, and uncovering the wildness - and wilderness - within. Beautifully illustrated by Helen Nicholson, Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women is her first collection of short stories. All are either reimaginings of older tales, or contain characters, beings and motifs which appear in older tales.

    This compelling collection showcases Brooks's technical mastery, her warm humanity, and her compassionate and illuminating response to a complex world. This edition also includes a special PS section with insights, interviews, and more—including a short piece by Nikki Giovanni entitled "Remembering Gwen."By 1963 the civil rights movement was in full swing across the United States, and more and more African American writers were increasingly outspoken in attacking American racism and insisting on full political, economic, and social equality for all. In that memorable year of the March on Washington, Harper & Row released Brooks’s Selected Poems, which incorporated poems from her first three collections, as well as a selection of new poems.This edition of Selected Poems includes A Street in Bronzeville, Brooks's first published volume of poetry for which she became nationally known and which led to successive Guggenheim fellowships; Annie Allen, published one year before she became the first African American author to win the Pulitzer Prize in any category; and The Bean Eaters, her fifth publication which expanded her focus from studies of the lives of mainly poor urban black Americans to the heroism of early civil rights workers and events of particular outrage—including the 1955 Emmett Till lynching and the 1957 school desegregation crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas.

    It is a book that should be performed as well as read.

    Before you get snowed in, grab yourself a copy of this limited-edition collection. With heroes and heroines of all kinds, you'll be sure to find some that you just can't help but fall in love with. These romantic reads can be read as stand-alone stories. But, why would you want to do that? Read them all! Immerse yourself in this wintery ensemble from Romance Collections. This collection includes: Storm of Seduction (Gilpin County Search & Rescue 1.5) by Nicole Morgan Will Lori's plan be the thing that brings her and Kevin together again? The Gift by Stephanie Morris Sometimes love is the only gift you need Luca's Little Christmas Cracker by Caitlyn Lynch Santa's sexy helper is all Luca wants for Christmas! Finding Love by Krista Ames Sometimes the best things are found in awkward places... The Great Fruitcake Bake-off by Vicki Batman It's love and war in the baking world. Christmas Choices by Sharon Coady Which man can make this the best Christmas of her life? Hot Coffee by Donna R. Mercer Everyone Needs A Little Cream in Their... Nice Girl Naughty by Jan Springer Can Summer's bodyguard keep her safe from a serial killer? Touchdown Dance by Carma Haley Shoemaker Dance was my first love. I'm counting on you to be my last. Christmas Wishes by Livia Quinn Tis the Season for Second Chances Tied Up In Tinsel by Amber Skyze Things can go awry when a dream fantasy turns into a nightmare. Rent-a-Gentleman Two: Winter Sparks by Rebecca Fairfax A winter-spring relationship? No--more like winter sparks Stranger in the Snow by Jane Blythe Trust a stranger with her life or risk it in a blizzard. Resisting You by Suzanne Jenkins Kendall accepted a life without love until an unexpected visitor changed her mind. Mistletoe Fantasies, Book 1 in the Pleasure Your Fantasies Series by Stacy Eaton Dancing pays the bills, but it's ruining her Christmas Fantasy. A White Hot Christmas: Novella by Rene Webb Keeping warm has never been this hot! A Wolf's Claim (The Holiday Ball Book 1) by Marie Mason Will fate and some blue pixie dust be enough to get these two lovers together? Christmas Comes to Silver Falls (A BBW Holiday Romance) by Joann Baker & Patricia Mason When a long lost love rides into town, Christmas becomes even more complicated for Mayor Holly Bryant as she must choose between her responsibility as mayor or her heart. Winter Encounter by Karen Cino

    They are likely to make one exclaim, ‘This couldn’t have happened!’ even as the narrators swear they are nothing but pure fact. The bizarre chronicle of a lazy daughter-in-law, the court clerk who loved eating chaat, two cousins inseparable even in death, a blind teacher who fell in love with a woman with beautiful eyes and other wild tales from Bareilly, Lucknow, Hapur, Badaun, Sapnawat and Pilibhit, places big and small, in that fascinating part of India called Uttar Pradesh.

    Whether writing about the love (and conflict) between parents and children or between husband and wife, or about the struggles of aging single mothers or disheartened political organizers to make sense of the world, she brings the same unerring ear for the rhythm of life as it is actually lived.The Collected Stories is a 1994 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

    There have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head. McSweeney’s has won multiple literary awards, including two National Magazine Awards for fiction, and has had numerous stories appear in The Best American Magazine Writing, the O. Henry Awards anthologies, and The Best American Short Stories. Design awards given to the quarterly include the AIGA 50 Books Award, the AIGA 365 Illustration Award, and the Print Design Regional Award.

    Her instantly recognizable work draws extensively on her life and her extraordinarily personal reflections upon it.   On Kahlo’s death, her husband, Diego Rivera (1886–1957), ordered that her most private possessions be locked away until 15 years after his death. The bathroom in which her belongings were stored in fact remained unopened until 2004. Through this incredible archive, Frida Kahlo’s Wardrobe gives readers a unique window into Kahlo’s life. It will focus on the personal, combining her prosthetics, jewelry, and clothes with self-portraits, diary entries, and letters to build an intimate portrait of the artist through her possessions, setting this in the context of her political and social beliefs.

    Gathered from around the world, from regions as diverse as sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe, from North and South American Indian cultures and New World settlers, from Asia and the Middle East, these 100 folktales celebrate strong female heroines.Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters is for all women who are searching to define who they are, to redefine the world and shape their collective sensibility. It is for men who want to know more about what it means to be a woman. It is for our daughters and our sons, so that they can learn to value all kinds of courage, courage in battle and the courage of love. It is for all of us to help build a more just vision of woman.

    Katie Hickman went to Mexico looking for magic. She found it in the circus - big top, clowns, elephant and all - where cheap, torn materials are transformed for a night into glittering illusion. Gradually adjusting to the harsh ways of the circus's nomadic lifestyle she soon became absorbed into this hypnotic new world. At first, as a foreigner, she was on the outskirts, but she soon became La Gringa Estrella, a performer in her own right and adopted sister to the Bell's family.

    She is an artist who evokes the wonder, terror, and heartache of her native Haiti--and the enduring strength of Haiti's women--with a vibrant imagery and narrative grace that bear witness to her people's suffering and courage.When Haitians tell a story, they say "Krik?" and the eager listeners answer "Krak!" In Krik? Krak! Danticat establishes herself as the latest heir to that narrative tradition with nine stories that encompass both the cruelties and the high ideals of Haitian life. They tell of women who continue loving behind prison walls and in the face of unfathomable loss; of a people who resist the brutality of their rulers through the powers of imagination. The result is a collection that outrages, saddens, and transports the reader with its sheer beauty.

    In 1962, 'The Fine White Mist of Winter, ' composed when the author was 19 years old, appeared in The Literary Review and was selected for both the O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories of that year.By the north gate: Edge of the world ; The fine white mist of winter --Upon the sweeping flood, 1966: First views of the enemy ; At the seminary ; What death with love should have to do ; Upon the sweeping flood --The wheel of love: In the region of ice ; Where are you going, where have you been? ; Unmailed, unwritten letters ; Accomplished desires ; How I contemplated the world from the Detroit House of Correction and began my life over again ; Four summers --Marriages and infidelities: Love and death ; By the river ; Did you ever slip on red blood? ; The lady with the pet dog ; The turn of the screw ; The dead --The goddess and other women: Concerning the case of Bobby T. ; In the warehouse ; Small avalanches --Night-side: The widows ; The translation ; Bloodstains ; Daisy --Uncollected: The molesters ; Silkie.

    Appearing in print for the first time, "Amnesty" is a story of a woman named Noah who works to negotiate the tense and co-dependent relationship between humans and a species of invaders. Also new to this collection is "The Book of Martha" which asks: What would you do if God granted you the ability—and responsibility—to save humanity from itself?Like all of Octavia Butler’s best writing, these works of the imagination are parables of the contemporary world. She proves constant in her vigil, an unblinking pessimist hoping to be proven wrong, and one of contemporary literature’s strongest voices.

    Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women—who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive "feminine" passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company.In this witty and exuberant collection of linked stories, Aoko Matsuda takes the rich, millennia-old tradition of Japanese folktales—shapeshifting wives and foxes, magical trees and wells—and wholly reinvents them, presenting a world in which humans are consoled, guided, challenged, and transformed by the only sometimes visible forces that surround them.