The Women Who Raised Me

We live in a time when more women are raising their hand and demanding to be seen and heard. Women have endless possibilities to create their dream business, relationships, and lifestyle. It’s a time of celebration and yet, a time to bring awareness to a bigger issue many women face. The fear trap, a trap that holds women prisoner to their past, stuck in shame, and afraid to act. Women want to know if they can have it all. Author Christy Primmer knows they can. In Confessions of a Self-Care Junkie, she shares that the secret to living your best life is hidden in your self-esteem, trust, and ultimately, your self-care routine. Inspired by her own journey of self-discovery, Primmer details how she learned to love herself, build her faith, and live a life she only dreamed of. Every confession highlights an area of both struggle and growth while teaching the importance of self-care from six different angles. Primmer tells how she went from living on the sidelines to center stage of her own life, discussing how releasing the need to be liked transformed the woman she is and how she lives. Inspirational, Confessions of a Self-Care Junkie gives you practical strategies to unleash your inner possibilities, release the fear, and live free.

In this anthology of creative nonfiction, twenty-eight writers set out to discover what they know, and don't know, about the person they call Mother. Celebrated writers Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith have curated a diverse and insightful collection that challenges stereotypes about mothers and expands our notions of motherhood in the South. The mothers in these essays were shaped, for good and bad, by the economic and political crosswinds of their time. Whether their formative experience was the Great Depression or the upheavals of the 1970s, their lives reflected their era and influenced how they raised their children. The writers in Mothers and Strangers explore the reliability of memory, examine their family dynamics, and come to terms with the past. In addition to the editors, contributors include Belle Boggs, Marshall Chapman, Hal Crowther, Clyde Edgerton, Marianne Gingher, Jaki Shelton Green, Sally Greene, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Eldridge "Redge" Hanes, Lynden Harris, Randall Kenan, Phillip Lopate, Michael Malone, Frances Mayes, Jill McCorkle, Melody Moezzi, Elaine Neil Orr, Steven Petrow, Margaret Rich, Omid Safi, James Seay, Alan Shapiro, Bland Simpson, Sharon K. Swanson, and Daniel Wallace.

Arranged according to the order of the seder, this practical guide gathers the voices of more than 100 women in the form of accessible and inspiring introductions to each part of the seder, overviews of how different aspects of the Passover ritual have been reinterpreted in a feminist context, and much more.

From an identity crisis and being naive about my beliefs, Rising Soul is about accepting my identity and understanding the depth of my faith. Rising Soul covers topics of womanhood and self love.

Essays on Race, sexuality, Literature, and Culture from " One of the most dangerous liberals in America"

"Cloth only wears, it does not die," the paradoxical phrase from a Bunu Yoruba prayer, emphasizes the power of cloth as a symbol of continuing social relations and identities in the face of uncertainty and death. The Bunu Yoruba people of central Nigeria mark every critical juncture in an individual’s life, from birthing ceremonies to funeral celebrations, with handwoven cloth. Anthropologist Elisha Renne explains how and why this is so and discusses why handwoven cloth is still valued although it is rarely woven in Bunu villages today. Special marriage cloths mark changes in the status of Bunu brides, as well as in the social connections of kin during traditional marriage rituals. In funerals, handwoven cloth is used to rank chiefs; in masquerade performances, it indicates the presence of ancestral spirits. As tailored and untailored dress, it expresses gender and educational differences. Further, it is worn to distinguish ritual events that have a unique Bunu identity from everyday affairs where commercial, industrially woven cloth prevails. Renne examines the use and production of cloth in Bunu society from approximately 1900 to the present. Some traditions associated with cloth have given way to changes brought about by long contact with Christian missionaries and by British colonial policies that altered methods of cotton and cloth production. Today weaving is no longer done as a matter of course by all village women, but rather has become the specialty of only a few. Why does handwoven cloth still play such a vital role in Bunu social life when, in fact, Bunu women have largely given up weaving? To explain cloth’s continued cultural importance, Renne takes the story beyond the descriptive and historic to examine the meaning of different kinds of cloth for various members of Bunu village communities -- from wives and diviners to chiefs and hunters. The details of Bunu village life in Cloth That Does Not Die complement the many uses of cloth that Renne interprets. Anthropologists, social historians, and historians of African art will find the book of great value as an example of how material culture can integrate the study of various aspects of social life. The book will interest textile artists with its close attention to the visual properties of cloth itself.

This is the electrifying dystopian love story, the first in the trilogy by bestselling authors Giovanna and Tom Fletcher. '. . . ONE OF THE BIG BOOKS OF THE YEAR. YOU'D BE A FOOL TO MISS IT' HEAT ______________ Eve is like any other teenage girl . . . Except that the fate of the entire world lies on her shoulders. She's the first girl born in fifty years. She's the answer to their prayers. She's the final hope. Which means she has one function alone . . . At sixteen, Eve must face her destiny and make a choice. She will choose a man, one out of three carefully selected suitors. But what about Bram? The future of the planet hangs on Eve making the right choice. Will she? COULD YOU CHOOSE BETWEEN LOVE, AND THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE?