Meet the Clanswomen... International bestselling authors Jenny Colgan, Isla Dewar, and Muriel Gray lead off this dazzling collection of stories by popular and rising Scottish women authors. A sometimes wild, sometimes poignant romp through the lives of Scotswomen, Scottish Girls About Town revels in the universal hilarity and strife of being a girl! They're looking for something moor. In Jenny Colgan's "The Fringes," a hapless heroine heads to the Edinburgh "Fringe" -- a massive theatrical and musical festival -- for a night of her own disastrous drama. Isla Dewar offers up "In the Garden of Mrs. Pink," one woman's look back at her girlhood and the life lessons she learned from an eccentric neighbor. In Muriel Gray's "School-Gate Mums," a single mother with killer instincts settles the score with one of the mothers at her son's school. Whether they're racing their flatmates in a weight-loss contest, reconnecting with long-lost friends, or grappling with the men in their lives, these daughters of Scotland prove that no one can top their audacious spirit and Highland charm.

An anthology of sixteen short stories about family, friendship, and love features contributions from popular Irish women authors.

Born in the U.S.A.... American gals are taking liberties -- and pursuing happiness on their own terms -- in this star-studded story collection featuring the nation's red-hot women writers. They've declared their independence! Jennifer Weiner (In Her Shoes) learns "The Truth About Nigel" -- and the trouble with falling for an incognito Hollywood actor. Lauren Weisberger (The Devil Wears Prada) sends a single New Yorker on a backpacking trip halfway around the world -- where she sees her love life back home with new eyes -- in "The Bamboo Confessions." A harried mom with a hit novel crosses the pond in "My Great Brit Book Tour" by Adriana Trigiani (Lucia, Lucia), and turns a crumbling talk show appearance into a sweet success. Also uniting their talents in this free-spirited anthology are JULIANNA BAGGOTT • CINDY CHUPACK • LYNDA CURNYN • QUINN DALTON • LAUREN HENDERSON • JUDI HENDRICKS • GRETCHEN LASKAS • CLAIRE LaZEBNIK • CHRIS MANBY • SARAH MLYNOWSKI • MELISSA SENATE • JILL SMOLINSKI • NANCY SPARLING • LAURA WOLF

This is the first comprehensive critical analysis of Scottish women's writing from its recoverable beginnings to the present day. Essays cover individual writers - such as Margaret Oliphant, Nan Shepherd, Muriel Spark and Liz Lochhead - as well as groups of writers or kinds of writing - such as women poets and dramatists, or Gaelic writing and the legacy of the Kailyard. In addition to poetry, drama and fiction, a varied body of non-fiction writing is also covered, including diaries, memoirs, biography and autobiography, didactic and polemic writing, and popular and periodical writing for and by women.

The portrayal of Scotland as a particularly patriarchal society has traditionally had the effect of marginalizing Scottish women, both teachers and students, in both Scottish and British history. The Schooling of Working-Class Girls in Victorian Scotland examines and challenges this assumption and analyzes in detail the course of events which has led to a more enlightened system. Education was, and is, seen as integral to Scottish distinctiveness, but the Victorian period saw anxious debate about the impact of outside influences at a time when Scottish society seemed to be fracturing. This book examines the gender-blindness of the educational tradition, with its notion of the 'democratic intellect', testing the claim of superiority for the Scottish system, and questioning the assumption that Scottish women were either passive victims or willing dupes of a peculiarly patriarchal ideal. Considering the influences of the related ideologies of patriarchy and domesticity, and the crucial importance of the local and regional economic context, in focusing on female education, this book provides a much wider comparative study of Scottish society during a period of tremendous upheaval and a perceived crisis in national identity, in which women, as well as men, participated.

Women are shown to have played an important and very visible role in society at the time. Fashionable "polite" society of this period emphasised mixed-gender sociability and encouraged the visible participation of elite women in a series of urban, often public settings. Using a variety of sources (both men's and women's correspondence, accounts, bills, memoirs and other family papers), this book investigates the ways in which polite social practices and expectations influenced the experience of elite femininity in Scotland in the eighteenth century. It explores women's education and upbringing; their reading practices; the meanings of the social spaces and activities in which they engaged and how this fed over into the realm of politics; and the fashion for tourism at home and abroad. It also asks how elite women used polite social spaces and practices to extend their mental horizons and to form a sense of belonging to a public at a time when Scotland was among the most intellectually vibrant societies in Europe.

Scotland: Global Cinema focuses on the explosion of filmmaking in Scotland in the 1990s and 2000s. It explores the various cinematic fantasies of Scotland created by contemporary filmmakers from all over the world who braved the weather to shoot in Scotla