After years of working behind a desk, Holly Morris had finally had enough. So she quit her job and set out to prove that adventure is not just a vacation style but a philosophy of living and to find like-minded, risk-taking women around the globe. With modest backing, a small television crew, her spirited producer-mother, Jeannie, and a whole lot of chutzpah, Morris tracked down artists, activists, and politicos–women of action who are changing the rules and sometimes the world around them. In these pages, Morris brings to life the remarkable people and places she’s encountered on the road while filming her PBS series Adventure Divas and other programs. We meet Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther and social activist and now a fugitive living in exile in Cuba; Kiran Bedi, New Delhi’s chief of police, who revolutionized India’s infamously brutal Tijar Jail with her humanitarian ethic; New Zealand pop star Hinewehi Mohi, a Maori who reinvigorates her native culture for a new generation; and Mokarrameh Ghanbari, a septuagenarian painter and rice farmer who lives in the tiny village of Darikandeh on the Caspian plains of Iran, where her creative talents run counter to the government’s strict stance on art. Along the way, Morris herself becomes a certified Adventure Diva, as she hunts for wild boar with Penan tribesmen in the jungles of Borneo, climbs the Matterhorn short-roped to a salty fourth-generation Swiss guide, and memorably becomes the first woman ever to enter the traditional camel race of the Saharan oasis town of Timia. Intelligent, phenomenally funny, and chock-full of rich and telling details of place, Adventure Divas is a pro-woman chronicle for the twenty-first century. In a pilgrimage fueled by curiosity, ideology, and full-on estrogen power, Holly Morris has paved the way for all of us to discover our own diva within and set out on our own adventures.

Ravenswing Academy is proud to announce their super smart Wildlife Divas Adventure Team. Cherie, their instructor and leader, proudly presents this team of young, bright girls: EBONY - A popular and pretty artist and social media-savvy diva KYLONI - A petite teen and aspiring scientist with a ginormous vocabulary VALERIE - A girl comfortable with tech; not quite comfortable with people YALANI - A budding engineering expert and future skateboarder extraordinaire STORM - A brilliant, bug-loving, math whiz kid, sharp, and quick girl; it's all in her name Cherie and the Wildlife Divas go on the trip of a lifetime: fly to Uganda to save endangered gorillas. They will use science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) to complete their first international mission. But what happens when their trek is interrupted by poachers? THE WILDLIFE DIVAS ADVENTURE TEAM: Saving the Endangered Mountain Gorilla is the first of many adventures with the Wildlife Divas. The Divas prove that Black girls are smart, creative, and always up for international adventure

In the fourth and final volume of A History of Iranian Cinema, Hamid Naficy looks at the extraordinary efflorescence in Iranian film and other visual media since the Islamic Revolution.

Since publishing the original edition of A Woman’s World in 1995, Travelers’ Tales has been the recognized national leader in women’s travel literature, and with the launch of the annual series The Best Travel Writing in 2004, the obvious next step was an annual collection of the best women’s travel writing of the year. This title is the ninth in that series—The Best Women’s Travel Writing—presenting stimulating, inspiring, and uplifting adventures from women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples, and facets of themselves. The common threads connecting these stories are a female perspective and fresh, compelling storytelling to make the reader laugh, weep, wish she were there, or be glad she wasn’t. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes are as eclectic as in all of our books, including stories that encompass spiritual growth, hilarity and misadventure, high adventure, romance, solo journeys, stories of service to humanity, family travel, and encounters with exotic cuisine.

Women.

The iconic photo of Bonnie Parker—cigar clenched in jaw, pistol in hand—says it all: America loves its bad girls. Now Mary Elizabeth Strunk tells us why. Wanted Women is a startling look at the lives—and legends—of ten female outlaws who gained notoriety during the tumultuous decades that bracketed the tenure of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Strunk looks at real-life events and fictional portrayals to decipher what our obsession with these women says about shifting gender roles, evolving law-enforcement practices, and American cultural attitudes in general. These women's stories reveal what it takes-and what it has meant--to be a high-profile female lawbreaker in America. Strunk introduces us to Kathryn "Mrs. Machine Gun" Kelly, Ma Barker, and Bonnie Parker from the 1930s, and, from the 1970s, we meet heiress-turned-revolutionary Patty Hearst, five other women of the Symbionese Liberation Army, and Black Panther Assata Shakur. All saw themselves as struggling against an oppressive legal system. All became "wanted" criminals and would play a part in shaping Hoover's legacy. And all spent enormous amounts of energy attempting to manipulate public opinion in their favor. Strunk argues that each woman's public persona was to some degree invented by Hoover, who saw outlaw women as an alarming threat to public morality. He went after them with a vengeance, but in many ways his obsession only added to their reputations. Strunk shows how Hoover's repeated use of popular culture to publicize the threat of violent women initially succeeded in strengthening his FBI, but his approach became a liability by the time law enforcement was pitted against the women outlaws of the 1970s. The book chronicles the careers of these infamous outlaws both in the real world and in popular culture—film, ads, true-crime stories, autobiographies—as well as Hoover's own forays into filmmaking. It boasts 27 compelling images of movie stills, wanted posters, and other ephemera that have been assembled nowhere else, including rarely reproduced SLA artifacts. Strunk's book is the first study to define the narrow "formula" necessary for a woman to cross over from criminal to outlaw. Hitting on key notes of American culture from Black and gender studies to cinematic and legal history, Wanted Women sets a new benchmark for how we view women and crime as it contributes fresh insights into twentieth-century social history.

An impassioned homage to the divas who shake up our world and transform it with their bold, dazzling artistry. What does it mean to be a “diva”? A shifting, increasingly loaded term, it has been used to both deride and celebrate charismatic and unapologetically fierce performers like Aretha Franklin, Divine, and the women of Labelle. In this brilliant, powerful blend of incisive criticism and electric memoir, Deborah Paredez—scholar, cultural critic, and lifelong diva devotee—unravels our enduring fascination with these icons and explores how divas have challenged American ideas about feminism, performance, and freedom. American Diva journeys into Tina Turner’s scintillating performances, Celia Cruz’s command of the male-dominated salsa world, the transcendent revival of Jomama Jones after a period of exile, and the unparalleled excellence of Venus and Serena Williams. Recounting how she and her mother endlessly watched Rita Moreno’s powerhouse portrayal of Anita in West Side Story and how she learned much about being bigger than life from her fabulous Tía Lucia, Paredez chronicles the celebrated and skilled performers who not only shaped her life but boldly expressed the aspiration for freedom among brown, Black, and gay communities. Paredez also traces the evolution of the diva through the decades, dismayed at the mid-aughts’ commodification and juvenilizing of its meaning but finding its lasting beauty and power. Filled with sharp insights and great heart, American Diva is a spirited tribute to the power of performance and the joys of fandom.