Poems of discovery and loss pull the magical from the mundane Keep and Give Away was selected by Terrance Hayes as the inaugural winner of the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize sponsored by the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. In her first full-length collection, Susan Meyers guides us through her examination of life's ordinary moments and the seemingly ordinary images that abide in them to reveal the extraordinary. From minutia to marriage, crumbs to crows, nothing is too commonplace to escape her attention as she traverses terrains of childhood, loss, relationships, and death. Mostly lyrical and often elegiac, the poems of Keep and Give Away move along the rifts between the past and present, the lived and desired. The dominant emotions of the verses are deepened by observations rooted in our natural world, where birds are "yeses quickening the air" and the sky can "lap you up, and up." In the book's final section, marriage poems turn to fishing and gardening for their truths, contemplations that recognize the realities of a world governed by luck, imperfection, contraries, and—most of all—love.
The Decorating Club shares the story of what happens when a group of women come together to help each other redesign their homes. In the process, they support each other through some of the challenges encountered by women today. While the primary focus is on identifying the best purpose and theme for each room they soon find themselves faced with the need to help one another determine life's next chapter. The Decorating Club was inspired by true-life experiences with real neighbors and the friendship they shared.
Maddy, a social worker, is trying to balance her career and three children, but her husband's verbal furies have made the family wary and frightened. Where once his fiery passion had been reserved for defending his clients, now he's lashing out at all of them. She vacillates between tiptoeing around him and asserting herself for the sake of their kids --keeping a fragile peace --until the rainy day when they're together in the car and Ben's volatile temper gets the best of him, leaving Maddy in the hospital fighting for her life.
Five years ago, Tia fell into obsessive love with a man she could never have. Married, and the father of two boys, Nathan was unavailable in every way. When she became pregnant, he disappeared, and she gave up her baby for adoption. Five years ago, Caroline, a dedicated pathologist, reluctantly adopted a baby to please her husband. She prayed her misgivings would disappear; instead, she's questioning whether she's cut out for the role of wife and mother. Five years ago, Juliette considered her life ideal: she had a solid marriage, two beautiful young sons, and a thriving business. Then she discovered Nathan's affair. He promised he'd never stray again, and she trusted him.
Lulu and Merry's childhood was never ideal, but on the day before Lulu's tenth birthday their father propels them into a nightmare. He's always hungered for the love of the girls' self-obsessed mother; after she throws him out, their troubles turn deadly. Lulu had been warned not let her father in, but when he shows up drunk, he's impossible to ignore. He bullies his way past Lulu, who then listens in horror as her parents struggle. She runs for help, but discovers upon her return that he's murdered her mother, stabbed her five-year-old sister, Merry, and tried, unsuccessfully, to kill himself. Lulu and Merry are effectively orphaned by their mother's death and father's imprisonment. The girls' relatives refuse to care for them and abandon them to a terrifying group home. Even as they plot to be taken in by a well-to-do family, they come to learn they'll never really belong anywhere or to anyone—that all they have to hold onto is each other. For thirty years, the sisters try to make sense of what happened. Their imprisoned father is a specter in both their lives, shadowing every choice they make. One spends her life pretending he's dead, while the other feels compelled--by fear, by duty--to keep him close. Both dread the day his attempts to win parole may meet with success. A beautifully written, compulsively readable debut, Randy Susan Meyers's The Murderer's Daughters is a testament to the power of family and the ties that bind us together and tear us apart.
In this “big-hearted triumph of a novel” (Carolyn Parkhurst, New York Times bestselling author) for fans of Jennifer Weiner, seven women enrolled in an extreme weight loss documentary discover self-love and sisterhood as they enact a daring revenge against the exploitative filmmakers. Alice and Daphne, both successful and accomplished working mothers, harbor the same secret: obsession with their weight overshadows concerns about their children, husbands, work—and everything else of importance in their lives. Daphne, plump in a family of model-thin women, discovered early that only slimness earns admiration. Alice, break-up skinny when she met her husband, risks losing her marriage if she keeps gaining weight. The two women meet at Waisted. Located in a remote Vermont mansion, the program promises fast, dramatic weight loss, and Alice, Daphne, and five other women are desperate enough to leave behind their families for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The catch? They must agree to always be on camera; afterward, the world will see Waisted: The Documentary. But the women soon discover that the filmmakers have trapped them in a cruel experiment. With each pound lost, they edge deeper into obsession and instability...until they decide to take matters into their own hands. Randy Susan Meyers “spins a compelling tale” (Kirkus Reviews) and “delivers a timely examination of body image, family, friendship, and what it means to be a woman in modern society...Culturally inclusive and societally on point, this is a must-read” (Library Journal).
A provocative new novel by bestselling author Randy Susan Meyers about the seemingly blind love of a wife for her husband as he conquers Wall Street, and her extraordinary, perhaps foolish, loyalty during his precipitous fall. Phoebe recognizes fire in Jake Pierce's belly from the moment they meet as teenagers. As he creates a financial dynasty, she trusts him without hesitation--unaware his hunger for success hides a dark talent for deception. When Phoebe learns her husband's triumph and vast reach rests on an elaborate Ponzi scheme her world unravels. As Jake's crime is uncovered, the world obsesses about Phoebe. Did she know her life was fabricated by fraud? Was she his accomplice? While Jake is trapped in the web of his deceit, Phoebe is caught in an unbearable choice. Her children refuse to see her if she remains at their father's side, but abandoning him feels cruel and impossible. From penthouse to prison, with tragic consequences rippling well beyond Wall Street, Randy Susan Meyers's latest novel exposes a woman struggling to survive and then redefine her life as her world crumbles.
When a teddy bear is lost by the child who loves him, the bear begins an amazing journey to get back home again. From swimming in the ocean with the fish, to flying in the sky with the gulls, to being found by a sailor, and then being carried off by the wind, the bear meets new friends and travels to many places he never dreamed of. Reminiscent of such classics as The Velveteen Rabbit and the award-winning Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, this tender picture book with beautiful seaside imagery will capture readers’ hearts with the bear’s summer adventure as he gets back home where he belongs. Also available by Susan Meyers Praise for Puppies! Puppies! Puppies! [STAR] “The rhyme shows the simplicity Meyers employs in a text so well structured that almost any adult (or new reader) can prance through with natural, bouncy enthusiasm.” —Booklist, starred review Also available by Amy Bates Praise for The Dog Who Belonged to No One [STAR] “The pencil and watercolor illustrations, featuring a palette of golden earth tones, echo the gentle sentiment of the narrative.” —School Library Journal, starred review [STAR] “Careful parallel storytelling and beautifully paced page turns allow both text and illustrations to develop the characters, establishing both worth and loneliness.” —Kirkus, starred review F&P level: K F&P genre: RF
Most contemporary public managers will work in some type of collaborative or networked arrangement at some time in their professional careers. More and more work in public administration and policy is now being done in collaborative formats, and while there are many studies, articles, and cases describing successful endeavors, a good deal of confusion persists about what, exactly, makes them work. What are the best practices? This book focuses on the processes, protocols, and incentives needed for successful collaborative endeavors. Moving beyond new public governance theories and the limits of new public management, Chandler uniquely focuses on the facilitative skills and tools that members and facilitators need for success in collaborative work. Written by an author with both academic and practical experience in organizing, developing, leading, and facilitating public-private collaboratives, this book has both an academic thrust and an action focus, drawing on case studies from the fields of health and human services to highlight important theoretical and/or practice points. Making Collaboratives Work is required reading for undergraduate and graduate public-administration students of collaborative management, nonprofit administration, organizational theory and practice, communications, public policy, and leadership. The book is also ideally suited to public administrators and nonprofit managers asked to work in public-private partnerships and collaboratives to solve complex problems.
In Del OtroLado: Literacy and Migration across the U.S.-Mexico Border, author Susan V. Meyers draws on her year-long ethnographic study in Mexico and the United States to analyze the literacy practices of Mexican-origin students on both sides of the border. Meyers begins by taking readers through the historical development of the rural Mexican town of Villachuato. Through a series of case studies spanning the decades between the Mexican Revolution and the modern-day village, Meyers explores the ever-widening gulf between the priorities of students and the ideals of the public education system. As more and more of Villachuato’s families migrate in an effort to find work in the wake of shifting transnational economic policies like NAFTA, the town’s public school teachers find themselves frustrated by spiraling drop-out rates. Meyers discovers that students often consider the current curriculum irrelevant and reject the established value systems of Mexico’s public schools. Meyers debunks the longstanding myth that literacy is tied to economic development, arguing that a “literacy contract” model, in which students participate in public education in exchange for access to increased earning potential, better illustrates the situation in rural Mexico. Meyers next explores literacy on the other side of the border, traveling to Marshalltown, Iowa, where many former citizens of Villachuato have come to reside because of the availability of jobs for unskilled workers at the huge Swift meat-packing plant there. Here she discovers that Mexican-origin families in the United States often consider education a desirable end in itself rather than a means to an end. She argues that migration has a catalyzing effect on literacy, particularly as Mexican migrant families tend to view education as a desirable form of prestige. Meyers reveals the history and policies that have shaped the literacy practices of Mexican-origin students, and she raises important questions about not only the obligation of the United States to educate migrant students, but also those students’ educational struggles and ways in which these difficulties can be overcome. This transnational study is essential reading for scholars, students, educators and lawmakers interested in shaping the future of educational policy.
Find your group’s next great read with Atria Book Club Bites: a free sampling of ten books guaranteed to feed your discussion. Great books, dear friends, and fascinating conversation are the key ingredients in any book club. To help you decide what to read next, dip into Atria Book Club Bites: a free sampling of ten books guaranteed to feed your discussion. You’ll find excerpts from: The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult The Comfort of Lies by Randy Susan Meyers The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose The Mapmaker’s War by Ronlyn Domingue The Best of Us by Sarah Pekkanen Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger Heart Like Mine by Amy Hatvany The Edge of the Earth by Christina Schwarz Bird of Paradise by Raquel Cepeda Out With It by Katherine Preston Whether your club enjoys contemporary women’s fiction, stories with moral and ethical dilemmas, or a fascinating memoir, we’ve got a great book guaranteed to get you talking.
From the author of the bestselling Everywhere Babies comes a sweet and bouncy rhyming picture book that celebrates all the joys and wonders of being a baby.
A thorough, accessible guide to research, citation, and source evaluation, designed to assist students growing up in an era of social media, fake news, alternative facts, and information overload. Is Yahoo Answers a good source for your History essay? How about InfoWars? How do you include another person’s ideas in your work without stealing them? Should you cite an Instagram post as a source, and if so, how do you do it? Who Said What? provides students from middle school through college (along with bloggers, writers, and others who need to write with accuracy and clarity) with a reliable, friendly guide through the often bewildering process of research, writing, and documentation. Drawing on years of teaching, research, and writing experience, Kayla Meyers teaches you how to evaluate the trustworthiness of a source, how to use it without stealing it, how to properly credit its creator, and why all of this even matters. With contemporary examples and the step-by-step explanations that made Susan Wise Bauer’s Writing With Skill series so popular, Who Said What? will become an essential resource for young writers.
Two estranged sisters find that forgiveness never goes out of style when they inherit their mother’s vintage jackets, purses… and pearls of wisdom Estranged half-sisters Gabrielle Winslow and Lulu Quattro have only two things in common: mounds of debt and coils of unresolved enmity toward Bette Bradford, their controlling and imperious recently deceased mother. Gabrielle, the firstborn, was raised in relative luxury on Manhattan’s rarefied Upper East Side. Now, at fifty-five, her life as a Broadway costume designer married to a heralded Broadway producer has exploded in divorce. Lulu, who spent half her childhood under the tutelage of her working-class Brooklyn grandparents, is a grieving widow at forty-eight. With her two sons grown, her life feels reduced to her work at the Ditmas Park bakery owned by her late husband’s family. The two sisters arrive for the reading of their mother’s will, expecting to divide a sizable inheritance, pay off their debts, and then again turn their backs on each other. But to their shock, what they have been left is their mother’s secret walk-in closet jammed with high-end current and vintage designer clothes and accessories— most from Chanel. Contemplating the scale of their mother’s self-indulgence, the sisters can’t help but wonder if Lauren Weisberger had it wrong: because it seems, in fact, that the devil wore Chanel. But as they begin to explore their mother’s collection, meet and fall in love with her group of warm, wonderful friends, and magically find inspiring messages tucked away in her treasures — it seems as though their mother is advising Lulu and Gabrielle from the beyond — helping them rediscover themselves and restore their relationship with each other.
Every day, everywhere, babies are born. They're kissed and dressed and rocked and fed--and completely adored by the families who love them. With an irresistible rhyming text and delightfully endearing illustrations, here is an exuberant celebration of playing, sleeping, crawling, and of course, very noisy babies doing all the wonderful things babies do best.
What To Do Before Your Book Launch is a guide for authors, covering everything from working with your publisher, to reading in public, to help for publicity and marketing, to using (and misusing) social media, to how to dress for your author photo . . . and far more, including cautionary tales, worksheets, timelines and etiquette tips.
This handy, inexpensive pocket guide, useful for proclaimers of the word in the Sunday assembly, includes the words and names used in the readings for Sunday Mass and feast days. Helps lectors to proclaim the word with ease and confidence.
This book offers study strategies and techniques which were originally used in resource rooms for students with mild disabilities but are appropriate for all students, all content areas, and all educational levels. The book is structured around the acronym SMARTS for the six action steps or skills covered: (1) Studying, (2) Memorizing, (3) Active listening, (4) Reviewing, (5) Test-taking, and (6) Survival skills. The book begins with a study skills inventory and a group text inventory. Activities to foster listening skills are then offered, including eight awareness activities and five activities for fostering listening comprehension. The next section suggests 12 activities to help students learn to follow directions. A section on organizational skills gives tips on use of an organizational notebook, assignment sheets, and instant study skills. Suggestions for the effective use of textbooks describe the SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) technique and the use of text study helps. Suggestions for note-taking and ideas for building vocabulary are also offered. A section on memory and review suggests a variety of memory aids and the use of learning logs and study guides. The final section offers suggestions for taking tests and some survival skill strategies for students and teachers. An appendix explains the Fry formula for assessing readability. (DB)
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