Part memoir, part handbook, part survey of the contemporary literary scene, Joan Frank’s Because You Have To: A Writing Life is a collection of essays that, taken together, provide a walking tour of the writing life. Frank’s aim is to form a coherent vision, one that may provide some communion about realities of the writer's vocation that have struck her as rarely revealed. Frank offers what she has learned as a writer not only to other writers, but to those to whom good writing matters. Her insights about "thinking on paper" are never dogmatic or pontifical; rather, they are cordial and intellectually welcoming. Original, witty, and practical, Frank ably steers us through the journey of her own life as a writer, as well as through the careers and work of other writers. Her subjects range widely, from the “boot camp” conditioning of marketing work to squaring off with rejection and envy; from sustaining belief in art’s necessity to the baffling subjectivity of literary perception and the magical books that nourish writers. Frank’s personal journey is wonderfully told, so that what in these essays is particular becomes useful and universal.
Miss Kansas City is the story of an improbable friendship, set in the tumultuous mid-80s dotcom California, where youthful greed and blinkered innocence arrive intertwined. Friendless and reclusive, Alex Blue commutes two hours each way to a job that serves mainly as a place to bide time, until one day she meets the wealthy, worldly—and married—owner of a high-concept Bay Area lifestyle company. Meanwhile, the melancholy and closeted Morton Levi, yearning for a loving partner but stung by prior experience, lives a secret life outside the software information company he manages with a steady, efficient hand—the same company where Alex works. As ominous rumors of mergers and layoffs swirl, and Alex and Mort are pushed to the emotional brink by the vagaries of love, they find themselves forging an unexpected alliance. Miss Kansas City is a moving exploration of the notion of possibility, and of a seasoned hope that can emerge on the other side of loneliness and loss. Joan Frank is the author of the story collection Boys Keep Being Born, which was both a Bay Area Book Reviewers’ Award and Paterson Fiction Award finalist. Her stories appear in many journals and anthologies, including The Antioch Review,The Iowa Review, and Salmagundi. She is a MacDowell Colony and VCCA Fellow, Pushcart Prize nominee, recipient of a Barbara Deming Grant, and winner of the Iowa Fiction Award and Emrys Fiction Award. She lives in Northern California. Miss Kansas City is her first novel.
Buzzfeed News,"15 Small Press Books To Kick Off Your 2020 Reading Season" The Millions, “February Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated” "Death looms in these four sparkling novellas—thus the book’s sly title—but until then there’s the wonder of life. Frank’s subjects include fascinating friendships and complicated marriages, awful parties and odd enthusiasm. Bonus: song mentions that add up to a terrifically eclectic playlist.” —Kim Hubbard, People Magazine In her quartet of novellas, Joan Frank invites readers into the inner lives of characters bewildered by love, grief, and inexplicable affinities. A young couple navigates a strange friendship and unexpected pregnancy; a woman recalls the bizarre fallout of her former lover's fame; a lonely widow is drawn to an arrogant young man; a wealthy spiritual seeker grapples with what wealth cannot affect. Witty and humane, Frank taps the riches of the novella form as she writes of loneliness, friendship, loss, and the filaments of intimacy that connect us through time.
EXCERPT Because of course she feels what he feels. . . . People their age natter along not copping to it but the awareness is billboarded all over their faces—a wavering, a hesitation, even those who used to crow and jab the air. The tablecloth of certainty, with all its sparkly settings, has been yanked, and not artfully. It's why people drink. All The News I Need probes the modern American response to inevitable, ancient riddles—of love and sex and mortality. Frances Ferguson is a lonely, sharp-tongued widow who lives in the wine country. Oliver Gaffney is a painfully shy gay man who guards a secret and lives out equally lonely days in San Francisco. Friends by default, Fran and Ollie nurse the deep anomie of loss and the creeping, animal betrayal of aging. Each loves routine but is anxious that life might be passing by. To crack open this stalemate, Fran insists the two travel together to Paris. The aftermath of their funny, bittersweet journey suggests those small changes, within our reach, that may help us save ourselves—somewhere toward the end.
Curious, ruminative, and wry, this literary autobiography tours what Rachel Kushner called “the strange remove that is the life of the writer.” Frank’s essays cover a vast spectrum—from handling dismissive advice, facing the dilemma of thwarted ambition, and copying the generosity that inspires us, to the miraculous catharsis of letter-writing and some of the books that pull us through. Useful for writers at any stage of development, Late Work offers a seasoned artist’s thinking through the exploration of issues, paradoxes, and crises of faith. Like a lively conversation with a close, outspoken friend, each piece tells its experience from the trenches.
Desperate Women Need to Talk to You," originally a headline for an advertisement for phone sex, was spotted one day by author Joan Frank. Marveling at the irony and bluntness, Frank thought of the similarity to her own life: woman desperately trying to make sense of midlife. She decided to tell all. With both wit and sharp-hewn honesty, Joan Frank tackles the big and little issues facing the enormous number of women rounding the corner into middle age: our longing for the fountain of youth; that we can no longer eat whatever we want without getting fat; the decision to have children or not; the perils of pantyhose, and the agony and ecstasy of entering a new relationship.
This book is the result of a lecture that my wife Joan and I gave every semester on the last day of our business and ethics class at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. For almost seven years, we gave our students the "Top Ten" things (we actually had 12 but liked the title) we wished we knew when we were 20 years old. This list summarizes all of the things that we learned in starting and advising over 20 businesses over the years. It is also a set of life lessons from my life - things that I wish someone had been able to share with me when I was just starting out in my life and career. Although I wrote this for young people, the lessons are appropriate for people of any age, whether you are twenty or fifty -- because life is a marathon, not a sprint.
Remembering: Joan Williams’ Uncollected Pieces illustrates again that rediscovering an admired author—especially through his or her later works—is every bit as engaging as discovering a new literary voice. Joan Williams, an accomplished and prize-winning southern novelist, published a number of short stories and nonfiction pieces in the later years of her life; a life complicated early on by the influential men with whom she was involved, namely American author William Faulkner and independent publisher Seymour Lawrence. For years these literary gems were scattered and virtually unattainable to readers. Remembering: Joan Williams’ Uncollected Pieces unites the formerly published but never collected material. The book’s title piece, “Remembering,” features a 1981 essay on Byronic Mississippi-born poet, Frank Stanford—known to Joan from his infancy until his tragic suicide—whose collected poems What About This (2015) appeared thirty-seven years posthumously. Skillful, nuanced, and altogether approachable, these mature efforts by a seasoned writer will surprise and reward. Remembering is a lovely testament to the craft of writing and Joan Williams’ indelible style.
Desperate Women Need to Talk to You," originally a headline for an advertisement for phone sex, was spotted one day by author Joan Frank. Marveling at the irony and bluntness, Frank thought of the similarity to her own life: woman desperately trying to make sense of midlife. She decided to tell all.
In 2007 a file of letters between University of Heidelberg roommates and lifelong friends, Otto Frank and Nathan Straus Jr., was found in the archives of YIVO: The Institute for Jewish Research. The letters revealed for the first time that Otto Frank, diarist Anne's father, tried desperately to get his family out of war torn Holland in 1941, fifteen months before they went into hiding in the now famous attic at Prinsengracht 263, Amsterdam. The letters also show the lengths Nathan Straus Jr., then Housing Administrator under FDR, and many others, went to to help. But the tightening restrictions of the U.S. State Department, along with the deteriorating conditions in Europe, prevented even those with powerful connections and money, from securing the necessary documents that would allow the Frank family to immigrate. We have long known of the relationship between these two men. The story of the letters, however, is being published in a book for the first time. It enriches our understanding of the relationship between Otto Frank and Nathan Straus Jr., about the history of the Frank family and gives us greater insight into this tragic era.
A story of an unforgettable first love in the heart of Texas . . . from New York Times bestselling author Joan Johnston Delia Carson was only sixteen when she fled her Texas hometown. She left behind a web of lies that destroyed her family . . . and Marsh North, the irresistible bad boy she'd fallen in love with. Now, eleven years later, a family crisis forces Delia to return home—back to the mystery, back to the shadows . . . back to Marsh. His bad-boy reputation behind him, Marsh is now a respected, prizewinning journalist. And he's never forgotten Delia or the youthful love they shared. Determined not to lose her again, Marsh sets out to prove to Delia that they belong together. But will the dark secrets from Delia's past keep them apart?
Have you ever wondered about the hidden romance contained within Jane Austen's Emma? This literary retelling of Austen's classic novel focuses on the courtship and secret engagement of Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill. How did two people of such evidently disparate temperaments fall in love? How was "the most upright female mind in the creation" persuaded to keep their engagement secret? What were the thoughts and feelings of each as events unfolded during that spring and summer in Highbury? Written with great fidelity to the original, Lovers' Perjuries fills in all the details of scenes only hinted at in Emma. It also introduces new characters in a substantial subplot inspired by Persuasion, but featuring a lively heroine more reminiscent of Elizabeth Bennet than Anne Elliot. NOTE: THIS IS THE COMPLETE TEXT IN ONE VOLUME.
This casebook provides rich, detailed examples of the major mental illnesses. In addition, it also includes up-to-date information about the biological nature of these disorders, comprehensive approaches to treatment, and critical thinking and questioning pauses. As an added feature, this text incorporates multiple treatment providers including psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatric nurse practitioners. Before delving into the detailed cases, the text provides introductory chapters on: perspectives in abnormal psychology, diagnostic and therapeutic interviewing, classification and diagnosis, assessment procedures, introductory comments about each case, and therapeutic strategies. Readers learn about the personal history of each consumer both before and during the development of each case. Most cases also include in-depth interviews with individuals close to the consumer. Every case ends with a section on that particular disorder as viewed from a biological perspective. Treatment approaches are applied as appropriate as well as discussions centring on why other treatment techniques have been ruled out as viable options.
“A very amusing and imaginative romp that has the Joan Johnston stamp of excellence all over it.”—Affaire de Coeur When the gorgeous blonde sashayed into Oakville, Ethan Hawk was a goner—until she told him her name: Patch Kendrick. The tomboy tease he remembered from Fort Benton, Montana, was now a luscious lady hunting for her man: him! Nothing, not even his outlaw past, would keep Patch off his trail. She knew that Ethan Hawk was the man for her—even when he galloped out of her childhood with a price on his head and nary a backward glance. Now that she’s found him again, she’s armed and ready for love. But before Ethan could yield his heart, he had to clear his name. So Patch set out to find the villain who framed him—and risked ambushing her lifelong dream.
In 1949, Ruthie is a skinny, flat-chested, twelve-year-old tomboy with a metal front tooth living in the Washington Heights section of New York City. Its the most important year of her life; shes about to turn thirteen and move from her sheltered elementary school to a large metropolitan high school. She is frightened about leaving her tomboy life and frightened about confronting the world outside of the only places and friends she has ever known. Ruthie decides to start a diary that covers one year of her life and shares her innermost thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams. With humor and sensitivity, Spaghetti Rain speaks in the voice of a girl in that place and at that time. The reader is carried into the era through the songs, movies, radio broadcasts, and the daily lives of people. We dine in a famous night club, ice-skate at Rockefeller Center on Christmas Day, and experience the neighborhood shops, delicatessens, and movie palaces. The author describes Ruthies explosive father, her glamorous former showgirl aunt, her gossipy neighbors, and her loving mother. Secrets are revealed - her girlfriends escapes from Hitlers Europe, her grandmothers struggles - and at the end of her journey, Ruthie experiences both good and bad during a car trip to Miami. She and her family are turned away from an hotel because they are Jewish, she witnesses racial discrimination, but she also meets a boy on the beach and discovers first love. Finally, Ruthie realizes she has within her the courage to face whatever life has in store.
A Brahmin, member of an illustrious family, sister of the martyred Robert Gould Shaw, who led his proud black troops against Fort Wagner, and, later, a war widow, Lowell constantly responded to changing ideological and economic conditions affecting the poor.
Gentle Reader, It’s not that I approve of blackmail, but sometimes survival takes precedence over virtue. Unfortunately, the Earl of Winterdale has not proved to be quite the sort of victim I had envisioned. To be honest, I find that my heart is in far more danger from the handsome earl than he is endangered by my nefarious schemes. All I ever wanted was a home for my sister and me, but I fear Winterdale is about to exact a price of his own, one I’m not ready to pay. Or am I? Where he is concerned, I’m far too vulnerable. Damn. Georgiana (Georgie) Newbury
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