The Gruber sisters grow up in this second volume of The Biographies of Ordinary People, navigating jobs, friendships, and relationships in a constantly changing world. The Biographies of Ordinary People is the story of the Gruber family: Rosemary and Jack, and their daughters Meredith, Natalie, and Jackie. The two-volume series begins in July 1989, on Rosemary’s thirty-fifth birthday; it ends in November 2016, on Meredith’s thirty-fifth birthday. The second volume follows the three Gruber sisters as they each leave their rural Midwestern hometown and try to make their way in the larger world. Meredith is determined to pursue a career in the theater. Natalie begins sorting and filing for an insurance company. Jackie… well, Jackie still wants to sing, and if the classical music world isn’t interested in what she can do, she’ll figure out how to do it on her own. Set against the Great Recession, Presidents Obama and Trump, and a growing sense of national unrest, this final volume explores Meredith’s question: is it possible for ordinary people to make art? It also takes us into the close emotional connections between mothers and daughters, sisters and friends, and the people we choose to love as adults. Reviews and praise: “…a satisfying family saga about growing up and coming into one’s own.” – Foreword Clarion Reviews “A shrewdly unique portrait of everyday America.” – Kirkus Reviews “…the writing is precise and wonderfully descriptive.” – BlueInk Review
There once was a fisherman...There once was a father with two sons...There once was a woman with two daughters and a stepdaughter named Ella...Fairy tales have always been about two things: family and money. Cinderella wouldn't have ended up scrubbing those hearthstones if there had been other ways for her to earn a living wage; the fisherman and his wife wouldn't have had to ask a fish to help them get out of their shack if real estate prices had been more affordable. Frugal and the Beast retells these classic stories in our current era, reminding us that parents still leave people out of christening parties and fathers still claim their daughters can spin straw into gold -- and although the exchange rate is a little different than it was in the days of the Brothers Grimm, the lessons are just as relevant."The Billfold turns personal finance advice on its head, so it's no wonder it would do such clever things with fairy tales. These stories reveal so much about who we are and how we live today." -- Mike Dang, co-founder of The Billfold and editor-in-chief of Longreads"I never knew I need Rumpelstiltskin to involve Bitcoin or a parable about instant pots, but I'm so much happier now that I've read both. These stories will both delight and get you thinking about money." -- Lillian Karabaic, author of Get Your Money Together and host of Oh My Dollar!
As media industries undergo rapid change, the conditions of media work are shifting just as quickly, with an explosion in the number of journalists working as freelancers. Although commentary frequently lauds freelancers as ideal workers for the information age – adaptable, multi-skilled, and entrepreneurial – Nicole Cohen argues that freelance media work is increasingly precarious, marked by declining incomes, loss of control over one’s work, intense workloads, long hours, and limited access to labour and social protections. Writers’ Rights provides context for freelancers’ struggles and identifies the points of contention between journalists and big business. Through interviews and a survey of freelancers, Cohen highlights the paradoxes of freelancing, which can be simultaneously precarious and satisfying, risky and rewarding. She documents the transformation of freelancing from a way for journalists to resist salaried labour in pursuit of autonomy into a strategy for media firms to intensify exploitation of freelance writers’ labour power, and presents case studies of freelancers’ efforts to collectively transform their conditions. A groundbreaking and timely intervention into debates about the future of journalism, organizing precariously employed workers, and the transformation of media work in a digital age, Writers’ Rights makes clear what is at stake for journalism’s democratic role when the costs and risks of its production are offloaded onto individuals.
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