Womanist Midrash is an in-depth and creative exploration of the well- and lesser-known women of the Hebrew Scriptures. Using her own translations, Gafney offers a midrashic interpretation of the biblical text that is rooted in the African American preaching tradition to tell the stories of a variety of female characters, many of whom are often overlooked and nameless. Gafney employs a solid understanding of womanist and feminist approaches to biblical interpretation and the sociohistorical culture of the ancient Near East. This unique and imaginative work is grounded in serious scholarship and will expand conversations about feminist and womanist biblical interpretation.

What if the women of the Bible told their own stories? Lady Midrash: Poems Reclaiming the Voices of Biblical Women brings to life alternative interpretations and forgotten female perspectives from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Following in the footsteps of Jewish midrash, a storytelling tradition that explores the gaps in scripture, these poems re-examine the experiences of Biblical women. Sidelined heroines are celebrated. Supposed villainesses get to speak for themselves. Lady Midrash reverses convention, probes familiar narratives, attends to small moments, highlights peripheral and silent characters, and names the nameless. The imagination of midrash provides the reader with a creative space to rethink assumptions and reconsider the accounts of women in the Jewish and Christian traditions.

"Dirshuni: Contemporary Women's Midrash, is the first ever English edition of an historic collection of midrashim composed by Israeli women. The volume features a comprehensive introduction to Midrash for the uninitiated reader by the distinguished scholar Tamar Kadari and extensive annotation and commentary by Tamar Biala"--

In Belabored, Lyz Lenz will "make you cry in one paragraph and snort-laugh in the next" (Chloe Angyal, contributing editor at MarieClaire.com). Written with a blend of wit, snark, and raw intimacy, Belabored is an impassioned and irreverent defense of the autonomy, rights, and dignity of pregnant people. Lenz shows how religious, historical, and cultural myths about pregnancy have warped the way we treat pregnant people: when our representatives enact laws criminalizing abortion and miscarriage, when doctors prioritize the health of the fetus over the life of the pregnant patient in front of them, when baristas refuse to serve visibly pregnant women caffeine. She also reflects on her own experiences of carrying her two children and seeing how the sacrifices demanded during pregnancy carry over seamlessly into the cult of motherhood, where women are expected to play the narrowly defined roles of "wife" and "mother" rather than be themselves. Belabored is an urgent call for us to trust women and let them choose what happens to their own bodies, from a writer who "is on a roll" (Bitch Magazine).

A shepherdess who raced to the manger...a bride who saw Jesus turn water into wine...these are among the more than twenty rich imaginings of women hinted at in the Gospels, whose stories will enthrall and inspire.

The powerful coming-of-age story of an ultra-Orthodox child who was born to become a rabbinic leader and instead became a woman Abby Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, her way of life. Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be?