"Winner of the Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction"--

This anthology is a catalog of seeds—the work of a network of young writers and mentors, each cultivating a shimmering, emergent voice. For the past two years, New York City high school students have weathered an adolescence shaped by an ongoing global pandemic. Throughout it all, they have found new ways to build community and take root. Roots allow for living beings to journey into our past and forward into the future, toward and away from home, and enable us to withstand the storms that invariably pass through. In short stories, personal essays, poetry, and more, the students reflect on endurance, change, and growth. For twenty-five years, Girls Write Now has been amplifying transformative stories that break down the barriers of gender, race, age and poverty. In addition to being the first writing and mentoring organization of its kind, Girls Write Now continually ranks among the top programs nationwide for driving social-emotional growth for youth. The nationally award-winning nonprofit mentors the next generation of female and gender expansive writers and leaders who are shaping culture, impacting businesses and creating change.

"From age five, Sufiya Abdur-Rahman, the daughter of two Black Power-era converts to Islam, feels drawn to the faith even as her father, a devoted Muslim, introduces her to and, at the same time, distances her from it. He and her mother abandoned their Harlem mosque before she was born and divorced when she was twelve. Forced apart from her father--her portal into Islam--she yearns to reconnect with the religion and, through it, him. In Heir to the Crescent Moon, Abdur-Rahman's longing to comprehend her father's complicated relationship with Islam leads her first to recount her own history with it. Later, as she seeks to discover what both pulled her father to and pushed him from the mosque and her mother, Abdur-Rahman delves into the past. She journeys from the Christian righteousness of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.'s 1950s Harlem, through the Malcolm X-inspired college activism of the late 1960s, to the unfulfilled potential of the early-'70s' black American Muslim movement. When a painful reminder of the reason for her father's inconsistent ties to his former mosque appears to threaten his life, Abdur-Rahman's search nearly ends. She's forced to come to terms with her Muslim identity, and learns how events from generations past can reverberate through the present. Told, at times, with lighthearted humor or heartbreaking candor, Abdur-Rahman's story of adolescent Arabic lessons, fasting, and Muslim mosque, funeral, and eid services speaks to the challenges of bridging generational and cultural divides and what it takes to maintain family amidst personal and societal upheaval. Writing with quiet beauty but intellectual force about identity, community, violence, hope, despair, and faith, Abdur-Rahman weaves a vital tale about a family: black, Muslim, and distinctly American"--

What does it mean to be instantly transformed into the most hated person in your community? After meeting Fidel Castro at a Havana reception in 1994, Cuban-born Magda Montiel Davis, founder of one of the largest immigration law firms in South Florida, soon found out. The reception—attended by hundreds of other Cuban émigrés—was videotaped for historical archives. In a seconds-long clip, Fidel pecks the traditional protocol kiss on Montiel Davis’s cheek as she thanks him for the social benefits conferred upon the Cuban people. The video, however, was mysteriously sold to U.S. reporters and aired incessantly throughout South Florida. Soon the encounter was an international cause célèbre. Life as she knew it was over for Montiel Davis and her family, including a father who worked with the CIA to topple Fidel, a nohablo-inglés mother who lived with the family, her five children, and her Jewish Brooklyn-born attorney husband. Kissing Fidel shares the sometimes dismal, sometimes comical realities of an ordinary citizen being thrown into a world of death threats, mob attacks, and terrorism.

Kendra Allen’s first collection of essays—at its core—is a bunch of mad stories about things she never learned to let go of. Unifying personal narrative and cultural commentary, this collection grapples with the lessons that have been stored between parent and daughter. These parental relationships expose the conditioning that subconsciously informed her ideas on social issues such as colorism, feminism, war-induced PTSD, homophobia, marriage, and “the n-word,” among other things. These dynamics strive for some semblance of accountability, and the essays within this collection are used as displays of deep unlearning and restoring—balancing trauma and humor, poetics and reality, forgiveness and resentment. When You Learn the Alphabet allots space for large moments of tenderness and empathy for all black bodies—but especially all black woman bodies—space for the underrepresented humanity and uncared for pain of black girls, and space to have the opportunity to be listened to in order to evolve past it.

At the most prestigious preparatory schools in the United States, the children of educators are referred to as “faculty brats.” Though generally lacking the privilege of the institution’s wealthy students, faculty brats enjoy access to the school’s extensive grounds and facilities and are part of everyday campus life. Dominic Bucca’s art teacher mother married his music teacher stepfather twice, and the young boy wondered if the union might be twice as strong as a result. Instead, this faculty brat quickly discovered that the marriage was twice as flawed. When Dominic was nine years old, his stepfather began sexually abusing him in the faculty housing attached to the boys’ dorm his parents oversaw. Years later, he found escape by reaching out to his biological father, and learned to split his life between two realities. For nearly twenty-five years, Bucca hid the secret of his stepfather’s abuse from his mother and sisters. When he decided to tell, hoping to prevent his stepfather from continuing to teach young boys, Bucca discovered the limits of both his family and the legal system.

Vajayjay. Lady bits. Notorious V.A.G. It’s time we talked about vaginas. This pocket- sized book is here to debunk the myths and help you gain a better understanding of everything you were never taught, including: • The amazing things the vagina does from puberty to menopause • Advice on the most common complaints and how best to alleviate them • The vagina in pop culture–from the page to the stage This succinct and celebratory guide separates fact from fiction and will change the way you think and talk about your wonder down under.