Immerse yourself in the rustic beauty of rural Florida with "Cross Creek" by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. This evocative memoir captures the essence of life in a small community, weaving together vivid descriptions of nature, local characters, and the trials of farming. As Rawlings shares her experiences, you may ask yourself: What does it truly mean to belong to a place and its people? But here’s a thought to ponder: Can the lessons learned from the land shape our understanding of life itself? Experience the warmth and wisdom of Rawlings' storytelling as she paints a rich tapestry of life at Cross Creek. Her reflections on the rhythms of nature and the resilience of the human spirit offer insights that resonate deeply with readers of all backgrounds. Are you ready to discover the timeless lessons that nature and community can teach us? With beautifully crafted prose and heartfelt observations, this book invites you to connect with the land and the lives intertwined with it. It’s not just a memoir; it’s a celebration of the simple joys and profound truths found in everyday life. This is your chance to explore the heart of Florida through Rawlings' eyes. Will you let "Cross Creek" guide you on a journey of discovery and connection? Don’t miss the opportunity to own this literary treasure. Purchase "Cross Creek" now and embark on a journey through the landscapes and lives of a bygone era!

Drawing from interviews with people who knew both writers, as well as letters between them and other documented evidence of their meetings, Lillios (English, U. of Central Florida) offers an intriguing and in-depth study of the friendship between writers Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. She describes their complicated interracial friendship during the 1940s, when both were at the height of their fame and creativity and had published successful memoirs--Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road and Rawlings' Cross Creek--following their novels Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Yearling, respectively. Focusing on the year 1942, when the two met, she describes the development of their friendship, the development of their writing craft that culminated in their masterpieces, their memoirs, and how they influenced each other as they struggled to complete their last creative works.

"A fascinating tapestry woven from the lives of women who had won the right to vote a mere six years earlier. In Songs of a Housewife, we hear the voice of an emerging feminist, a voice that stubbornly and--given the political climate of the 1920s--courageously insists that women be respected. Fans of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings will be surprised and ultimately delighted by this long overdue collection."--Connie May Fowler, author of Sugar Cage and Before Women Had Wings "Makes available for the first time [the] early work of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. . . . Reveals themes, attitudes, phrases, habits of speech . . . and a predilection for irony that characterizes [her] later work."--Peggy W. Prenshaw, Louisiana State University "Rawlings's poetry is surprisingly good. . . . solid, traditional poetry about subjects that will never go out of fashion."--Joel Myerson, University of South Carolina More than a decade before writing The Yearling and Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was a young housewife-journalist living in Rochester, New York. In 1926, the Rochester Times-Union did a trial run of her column-in-verse, Songs of a Housewife. To the editor's surprise, the column proved immensely popular; over the next two years, Rawlings published a poem a day, six days a week, and gained a wide syndication. When she moved to Florida in 1928, however, the poems were forgotten and--until this collection of roughly half of them--never reprinted. In the 250 poems collected here, Rawlings presents homespun advice on such subjects as the trials and tribulations of being a cook, mother, friend, relative, and neighbor. She dedicates many to her favorite subjects: gardening, cooking, pets, and nature. Throughout, her goal is to entertain, to educate, and to give a voice to the housewife who sees her role as a creative and important one. In the process, of course, she also invariably reveals a great deal about herself, and devoted readers will be curious to see how the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings they know and love is evident here, in these early and spirited poems. Because little is known about Rawlings's life during this period, Songs of a Housewife is valuable as commentary on her evolving attitudes as a woman and as a writer, and many of the same themes appear in her later works. As a reflection of the life of a middle-class woman struggling to carve out an independent and fulfilling role for herself, these poems also offer a rare insight into the life of women in the late 1920s. Rodger L. Tarr is University Distinguished Professor of English at Illinois State University. His most recent publications are Short Stories of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (UPF, 1994) and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: A Descriptive Bibliography (1996).

The letters, written to her second husband, Norton S. Baskin, from 1938 to her death in 1953, present a sharply drawn picture of the nation as it struggled through the end of the Depression, World War II, and the beginning of the Cold War era, as well as a picture of Rawlings's intriguing life, which ranged from the Florida scrub to the New York literary scene. Above all, they reveal the temperamental writer at her most human - candid, lonely, insecure, bawdy, generous, and always fortified by her love for Baskin.

An American classic—and Pulitzer Prize–winning story—that shows the ultimate bond between child and pet. No novel better epitomizes the love between a child and a pet than The Yearling. Young Jody adopts an orphaned fawn he calls Flag and makes it a part of his family and his best friend. But life in the Florida backwoods is harsh, and so, as his family fights off wolves, bears, and even alligators, and faces failure in their tenuous subsistence farming, Jody must finally part with his dear animal friend. There has been a film and even a musical based on this moving story, a fine work of great American literature.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings dreamt of becoming a famous writer from the time that she was a young girl. After several years of searching for adventure and success, Marjorie finally found inspiration in the wild country of central Florida. While living there, she produced several popular works of fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize - winning novel The Yearling.