The Women Who Raised Me

The actress and dancer describes her origins as a mixed-race child from the Maine foster care system, her efforts to build her career, and the remarkable women who supported and inspired her.

In What My Mother Gave Me, women look at the relationships between mothers and daughters through a new lens: a daughter’s story of a gift from her mother that has touched her to the bone and served as a model, a metaphor, or a touchstone in her own life. The contributors of these thirty-one original pieces include Pulitzer Prize winners, perennial bestselling novelists, and celebrated broadcast journalists. Whether a gift was meant to keep a daughter warm, put a roof over her head, instruct her in the ways of womanhood, encourage her talents, or just remind her of a mother’s love, each story gets to the heart of a relationship. Rita Dove remembers the box of nail polish that inspired her to paint her nails in the wild stripes and polka dots she wears to this day. Lisa See writes about the gift of writing from her mother, Carolyn See. Cecilia Muñoz remembers both the wok her mother gave her and a lifetime of home-cooked family meals. Judith Hillman Paterson revisits the year of sobriety her mother bequeathed to her when Paterson was nine, the year before her mother died of alcoholism. Abigail Pogrebin writes about her middle-aged bat mitzvah, for which her mother provided flowers after a lifetime of guilt for skipping her daughter’s religious education. Margo Jefferson writes about her mother’s gold dress from the posh department store where they could finally shop as black women. Collectively, the pieces have a force that feels as elemental as the tides: outpourings of lightness and darkness; joy and grief; mother love and daughter love; mother love and daughter rage. In these stirring words we find that every gift, ?no matter how modest, tells the story of a powerful bond. As Elizabeth Benedict points out in her introduction, “whether we are mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, or cherished friends, we may not know for quite some time which presents will matter the most."

With Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters, Susan Forward, Ph.D., author of the smash #1 bestseller Toxic Parents, offers a powerful look at the devastating impact unloving mothers have on their daughters—and provides clear, effective techniques for overcoming that painful legacy. In more than 35 years as a therapist, Forward has worked with large numbers of women struggling to escape the emotional damage inflicted by the women who raised them. Subjected to years of criticism, competition, role-reversal, smothering control, emotional neglect and abuse, these women are plagued by anxiety and depression, relationship problems, lack of confidence, and difficulties with trust. They doubt their worth, and even their ability to love. Forward examines the Narcissistic Mother, the Competitive Mother, the Overly Enmeshed mother, the Control Freak, Mothers who need Mothering, and mothers who abuse or fail to protect their daughters from abuse. Filled with compelling case histories, Mothers Who Can’t Love outlines the self-help techniques Forward has developed to transform the lives of her clients, showing women how to overcome the pain of childhood and how to act in their own best interests. Warm and compassionate, Mothers Who Can’t Love offers daughters the emotional support and tools they need to heal themselves and rebuild their confidence and self-respect.

The Birth of a Voice comprises six years of work, enveloping the reader in a bold exploration of the growing up process, the human condition, and the relationships that shape us. It is an urgent call to humanity to recognize, reclaim, and review the experiences and emotions that make us human so that we all can move one step closer to fully realizing the strength within ourselves and the collective. Life is a circuitous road traveled by all, yet we often feel as though we must traverse it alone. We often forget that we are connected through the human experience far more than we are separated by life's minutia. We all grow up. We all endure hardship. We all experience joy and loss. The Birth of a Voice tells the dynamic story of us all–human triumphs and tribulations–and reminds us that we all have permission, and indeed the responsibility, to harness the power of our voices.

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.

With diverse and robust voices, women are reclaiming their place at the seder table. This complete sourcebook and guide shows you how to do it, too. For the first time, contemporary Jewish women's writings on the Passover seder are gathered in one comprehensive and compelling sourcebook—an unprecedented and powerful resource for those planning a women’s seder and those seeking to infuse their Passover celebration with the creative and courageous voices of Jewish women. Arranged according to the order of the seder, this practical guide gathers the voices of more than one hundred women in readings, personal and creative reflections, commentaries, blessings and ritual suggestions that can be incorporated into your Passover celebration as supplements to or substitutes for traditional passages of the haggadah. It also includes a detailed guide to planning a women’s seder, based on information from successful seder organizers around the world. Whether you are organizing a women’s seder in your community or planning a family seder in your home, this inspiring and accessible resource will help you take an active role in re-creating the educational and spiritual experience of Passover—and in shaping Judaism’s future. Contributors include: Dr. Rachel Adler • Dr. Rebecca T. Alpert • Rabbi Renni S. Altman • Zoe Baird Dr. Evelyn Torton Beck • Susan Berrin • Senator Barbara Boxer • Dr. Esther Broner Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin • Tamara Cohen • Anita Diamant • Dr. Carol Diament Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, PhD • Eve Ensler • Dr. Marcia Falk • Merle Feld Rabbi Susan P. Fendrick • Rabbi Tirzah Firestone • Dr. Ellen Frankel • Nan Fink Gefen Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb • Dr. Susannah Heschel Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar • Rabbi Naamah Kelman • Naomi Klein • Irena Klepfisz Maxine Kumin • Rabbi Noa Rachel Kushner • Rabbi Joy Levitt • Hadassah Lieberman Ruth W. Messinger • Dr. Faye Moskowitz • Joan Nathan • Dr. Alicia Suskin Ostriker Dr. Judith Plaskow • Marge Piercy • Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen • Anne Roiphe Danya Ruttenberg • Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso • The Honorable Jan Schakowsky Rabbi Susan Schnur • Rabbi Susan Silverman • Dr. Ellen M. Umansky Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg • Dr. Chava Weissler • Cantor Lorel Zar-Kessler

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.