In this illuminating book, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist and acclaimed poet Alice Walker reveals her remarkable philosophy of life. Curiously, this labor of love started with the author’s signature: Faced with the daunting task of providing autographs for multiple copies of one of her poetry collections, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth, Walker turned an act of repetition into an act of inspiration. For each autograph became something more than a name: a thoughtful reflection, an impromptu sketch, a heartfelt poem. The result is this spontaneous burst of the unexpected. A Poem Traveled Down My Arm is a lovely collection of insights and drawings—by turns charming and humorous, provocative and profound—that represent the wisdom of one of today’s most beloved writers. The essence of Walker’s independent spirit emanates from words and images that are simple but deep in meaning. An empowering approach to life...the inspiration to live completely in the moment...the chance to nurture one’s creativity and peace of mind—all these beautiful elements are evoked by this unusual and original book.

In this exquisite book, Alice Walker’s first new collection of poetry since 1991, are poems that reaffirm her as “one of the best American writers of today” (The Washington Post). The forces of nature and the strength of the human spirit inspire the poems in Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth. Alice Walker opens us to feeling and understanding, with poems that cover a broad spectrum of emotions. With profound artistry, Walker searches for, discovers, and declares the fundamental beauty of existence, as she explores what it means to experience life fully, to learn from it, and to grow both as an individual and as part of a greater spiritual community. About Walker’s Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful, America said, “In the tradition of Whitman, Walker sings, celebrates and agonizes over the ordinary vicissitudes that link and separate all of humankind,” and the same can be said about this astonishing new collection, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth.

Fourteen short stories by the Pulitzer Prize winning author about strong women--their struggles and joys.

Here's a one stop resource, containing 100 profiles of your favorite contemporary African American writers, along with complete lists of their works. Focusing on writers who have made their mark in the past 25 years, this guide stresses African American writers of popular and genre literature-from Rochelle Alers and Octavia Butler, and Samuel Delaney to Walter Mosley, and Omar Tyree, with a few classic literary giants also included. Short profiles provide an overview of the author's life and summarize his or her writing accomplishments. Many are accompanied by black-and-white photos of the author. The biographies are followed by a complete list of the author's published works. Where can you find information about popular, contemporary African American authors? Web sites can be difficult to locate and unreliable, particularly for some of the newer authors, and their contents are inconsistent and often inaccurate. Although there are a number of reference works on African American writers, the emphasis tends to be on historical and literary authors. Here's a single volume containing 100 profiles of your favorite contemporary African American writers, along with lists of their works. Short profiles provide an overview of the author's life and summarize his or her writing accomplishments. Many are accompanied by black-and-white photos of the author. The biographies are followed by a complete list of the author's published works. Focusing on writers who have made their mark in the past 25 years, this guide covers African American writers of popular and genre literature—from Rochelle Alers, Octavia Butler, and Samuel Delaney to Walter Mosley, Omar Tyree, and Zane. A few classic literary giants who are popular with today's readers are also included—e.g., Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Richard Wright. Readers who want to know more about their favorite African American authors or find other books written by those authors, students researching AA authors for reports and papers, and educators seeking background information for classes in African American literature will find this guide invaluable. (High school and up.)

Understanding Alice Walker serves both as an introduction to the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner's large body of work and as a critical analysis of her multifaceted canon. Thadious M. Davis begins with Walker's biography and her formative experiences in the South and then presents ways of accessing and reading Walker's complex, interconnected, and sociopolitically invested career in writing fiction, poetry, critical essays, and meditations. Although best known for her novel The Color Purple and her landmark essays In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose, Walker began her career with Once: Poems, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, and In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women. She has remained committed not merely to writing in multiple genres but also to conveying narratives of the hope and transformation possible within the human condition and as visualized through the lens of race and gender. Davis traces Walker's literary voice as it emerges from the civil rights and feminist movements to encourage an individual and collective search for justice and joy and then evolves into forceful advocacy for world peace, spiritual liberation, and environmental conservancy. Her writing, a rich amalgamation of the cutting-edge and popular, the new-age and difficult, continues to be paradigm shifting and among the most important produced in the last half of the twentieth century and among the most consistently prophetic in the first part of the twenty-first century.

A family from the United States goes to the remote Sierras in Mexico--Susannah, the writer-to-be; her sister, Magdalena; and their father and mother. There, amid an endangered band of mixed-race blacks and Indians called the Mundo, they begin an encounter that will change them more than they could ever dream. Moving back and forth in time, and among unforgettable characters and their magical stories, Walker brilliantly explores the ways in which a woman's denied sexuality leads to the loss of the much prized and necessary original self--and how she regains that self, even as her family's past of lies and love is transformed. . . .

“Though we have encountered our share of grief and troubles on this earth, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one.” — from the preface "I was born to grow, / alongside my garden of plants, / poems / like / this one“ So writes Alice Walker in this new book of poems, poems composed over the course of one year in response to joy and sorrow both personal and global: the death of loved ones, war, the deliciousness of love, environmental devastation, the sorrow of rejection, greed, poverty, and the sweetness of home. The poems embrace our connections while celebrating the joy of individuality, the power we each share to express our truest, deepest selves. Beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others, she demonstrates that we are stronger than our circumstances. As she confronts personal and collective challenges, her words dance, sing, and heal.