Bøker utgitt av Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company

We call ourselves the Lady Bunch. One of our nine members named us after the iconic TV show The Brady Bunch, which introduces its cast members in a rectangular format. As we begin our monthly Zoom meetings, each member pops into view like a Brady kid, and we fit snugly into our triple-line grid. Here's the Story . . . is our first compilation of the writing that emerged from our Zoom meetings since 2020 at an online course called "Writing about Your Mom without Guilt," for the Story Circle Network, an international nonprofit writing organization. Not ready to end our special bond, we continued to meet and share our writing after the course ended. What has emerged is this anthology of forty-two pieces: essays, stories, and poems. In this book, we didn't focus on the usual "female" subjects, such as our significant others, children, and jobs. We wrote about the women we had been and the women we wanted to be. Each of us had lived a full and singular life. Women are capable of generous and congenial support. We lift each other during life's trials and rejoice in our successes. As such, we think this unique collection will inspire and entertain many, taking readers on a provocative journey. We are: Amy Baruch, Stephanie Cowell, Linda Aronovsky Cox, Karen Finch, Jane Mylum Gardner, Rhonda Hunt-Del Bene, Katherine Kirkpatrick, Kathleen M. Rodgers, and Andrea Simon.

A mosaic of memories, events, and reflections about Dede Montgomery and her remarkable mother, with insights into the generations and circumstances they were born into that informed the women they became. Dede Montgomery returns to her own roots in From First Breath to Last, and skillfully weaves her life with her mother's in a touching tribute to family and what matters most in their lives. She meshes passages from her mother's memoir, journals, published book, and dissertation with her own memories and how her mother's journey influenced her own in a celebration of womanhood. Patty Montgomery was born between the World Wars and was reborn in the 1960s and 1970s during the time women pushed through the barriers to independence and equality. She followed what she believed was the expected path for other women like her who were privileged by whiteness, education, and middle-class income. Until she couldn't, and broke loose with support from some and criticism by others, while raising her only daughter to be self-confident and self-assured. From First Breath to Last is a treat to readers of all ages looking to embrace the wisdom from two women told through entertaining stories, fairy tales, and the advice from lives well-lived.

Dreams of Drowning is a work of magical realism that moves between real time where lives are buffeted by political conflict, tragedy and loss and another mysterious time where pain is healed, and love is eternal.It's 1973 and Amy, an American ex-pat, is living as an illegal immigrant in Toronto where she's fled to escape the scandal surrounding her twin sister's death by drowning. Joanie's been gone two years, but Amy still hears her cries for help. Romance would jeopardize the secrets Amy has to keep, but when she meets Arcus, a graduate student working to restore democracy in Greece, she falls hard. Arcus doesn't know about Amy's past, and she doesn't know Arcus has secrets of his own, including the shady history of an ancient relic he uses as a paperweight. In 1993 Toronto, Jacob Kanter, a retired archaeologist, is mourning his dear wife and grappling with his son's plans to move him to a nursing home. Despite double vision, tremors, and cognitive impairment, he remembers sailing as a youth and sets out toward the lake where he boards a ferry boat embarking on its maiden voyage. He expects a short harbor cruise, but the Aqua Meridian is larger than it looks, and time is slippery on the water. When he hears a drowning woman call for help his story merges with Amy's, and they discover they have unexpected gifts for one another.

A collection of tales that sparkle like tiny, fractured gems, reminding us that things aren't always what they appear to be. Katherine Hetzel steps away from juvenile fantasy fiction and taps into her darker, slightly twisted side with nineteen short stories and flash fiction-some previously published-brought together for the first time in a single volume. Hollow Daughter is not only the name of a story in the collection, it embodies the underlying current flowing through these fantasy-touched tales with fanciful creations such as breeding stones and washing cloths, and thoughtfish and blood moons. Hetzel presents imaginative tales of fortune card readers, weavers, spiritual leaders, devoted acolytes, perfect clones, and ordinary girls and women who find themselves facing extraordinary situations. Stories of when women are in control and when they have no control, and of women who are involved in real and imagined rituals of their own or other's making. Hetzel's collection of tales is a pointed commentary on women in society wrapped in biblical, futuristic, imaginary, and contemporary worlds that will resonate with readers' own lived or imagined experiences of being female.

A single cry for help can change the person who listens forever. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kelly Flynn is called to a crime scene where a foot in a running shoe has washed up along the Pacific shoreline. While there, she meets Therese, the mother of a missing Native woman, Diyanni. The young woman has been missing for almost a month, but the local police and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have shown little interest. Kelly resists Therese's plea for help as she feels overwhelmed with other commitments and the needs of her troubled teenaged daughter. But when Therese tells her about the dismissive attitude of the city police, Kelly decides to help Therese work through the jurisdictional maze of law enforcement agencies. Kelly finds herself in an eye-opening tangle of disinterest, negligence, lack of resources, and no easy answers for cases involving missing Indigenous people. As she begins to learn more, she works to hold on to her idealism and help find justice for Diyanni. Flotsam is an awakening to the tragedy of treating people like discarded debris, wrapped up in a page-turning mystery set in the misty Pacific Northwest.

Historian Maggie Winegarden decides she needs to spend some time away from her partner Bethany, who is upset over Maggie's desire to be a painter. Maggie visits the seaside town of Hastings and while in St. Clement's Church discovers that poet Christina Rossetti and artist Elizabeth "Lizzie" Siddal had been frequent visitors to Hastings and the church. Agatha, the church caretaker, shows Maggie a chest of papers in the catacombs that the vicar said belonged to Dante Gabriel Rossetti.Maggie discovers the papers are actually the lost diaries of Christina and Lizzie. She learns that Christina's and Lizzie's lives are intertwined beyond being sisters-in-law, that they become intimate friends and establish a community of women artists and poets, a Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood in Lizzie's ancestral home, Hope Hall.Maggie is joined by Bethany and Agatha in the quest to solve the mystery of how the diaries were buried in the St. Clement's Church catacombs and uncover surprising revelations on the origins of Christina's most famous poem "Goblin Market."Wrapped in a modern-day mystery, The Rossetti Diaries is a historical re-imagining that explores the indomitable artistic aspirations and achievements of the poet Christina Rossetti and the artist Elizabeth Siddal.

New experiences can be scary, especially going to school for the first time.Ever wonder what to tell your child who may be apprehensive about going to preschool? Award winning author and early childhood educator, Sylvia Rouss, has written another book inspired by the children in her own classroom. She takes the verses of Ecclesiastes-the ones that inspired Pete Seeger's song "Turn, Turn, Turn"-and transforms them into an entertaining look at what kids can look forward to in preschool.Through photos from an actual preschool class, In My Preschool shows all the new and exciting activities your child can experience. They learn that there's a time to talk and to listen, to play and be quiet, to walk and to run, to be messy and clean, to be noisy and be quiet and much more. Most importantly, they can see that preschool isn't scary at all, but some place that's fun.In My Preschool, There is a Time for Everything will delight the young readers of Rouss's Sammy Spider series and the Littlest series. Sylvia Rouss's stories have been translated into Spanish, Dutch, French and Portuguese with almost one million copies of her books sold to children around the world.

Seven-year-old Hanna Shelby has one big problem: everyone thinks she's Johnny Shelby. She's not only miserable, in 1950s rural Colorado, a boy could get killed acting even a little girlish. So, she buries her doll and tries to fit in. On her twenty-first birthday while working at the embassy in Bonn, Germany, she finds herself teetering on a bridge over the Rhine River. She realizes the risk of not being Hanna is greater than being, and returns to college in the United States presenting as a woman.She's disowned by her family and is fortunate to find a home with a German couple. Just as she's feeling fully at ease in her feminine life, a man sexually assaults and flogs her almost to death. She awakens from a coma acting like a child, with nearly complete amnesia, and speaking only German.Hanna and her adoptive family move back to Germany to build a new life. But she must confront her unresolved trauma in order to find her hidden dreams.Although a work of fiction, Jayna Sheats thinks of Hanna's Ascent as the autobiography that could have been if she had taken a different road, and much of it comes from her own life. Hanna's Ascent takes the reader on a singular journey of persistence, survival, and a reminder that good can happen in surprising and unexpected ways.

When we first meet Nomi, she is gazing out the window of an airplane taking her from the kibbutz that's been home all her adult life, to Massachusetts, which she has not seen since she left after a traumatic fallout with her parents in high school. Her only sister and nephew were found mysteriously dead in their big farmhouse on the outskirts of Salem, and her widowed mother is suffering from dementia in a nursing home nearby. Recently widowed herself, and childless, Nomi, at sixty, still grapples with the consequences of the event that sent her into exile as a teenager. She hasn't seen her mother in forty years and fears it's too late to heal wounds that have festered far too long. She simply wants to settle her sister's estate, make sure her mother's safe, and return to her safe kibbutz life. What seems like a straightforward mission is complicated by the mystery of her sister's death, the plight of a pregnant teenager rejected by her Orthodox Jewish parents, and John, the sympathetic police officer who befriends her. The old farmhouse Nomi inherits from her sister also holds mysteries, and maybe a ghost, of its own. To Die in Secret weaves interlocking threads of a richly complex tale of trauma, parenting, and forgiveness, as succeeding generations face horrific situations and unimaginable choices and struggle to find the hope and faith to carry on.

The amazing story of Anna Merz, who helped save black rhinoceroses from extinction.After growing up in stodgy, post-WWII London, Anna Merz is determined to live a life of grand adventure. She spends much of her life in Ghana, racing horses, exploring the Sahara, and rescuing orphaned wild animals that are dropped at her door.Anna retires to Kenya in anticipation of rest and relaxation. Instead, she finds her true calling: that of Kifaru Mama-Rhino Mama. After witnessing the slaughter of wild animals sold for their parts, Anna is determined to rescue the highly endangered black rhino, the dodo of the modern world-ungainly creatures destined for extinction. From building eight-foot-tall fences around five thousand acres of land, to darting rhinos from helicopters and trucking them to safety, Anna works to save one black rhino at a time.When faced with having to raise a newborn rhino abandoned by her mother or let it die, Anna learns by trial and error to not only keep baby Samia alive but to raise her so she'll be able to live on her own.How to Raise a Rhino is the true story of Anna Merz who helped establish the Ngare Sergoi Rhino Sanctuary, which became the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. Readers of all ages will cheer Anna on as she faces and defeats every obstacle with unwavering perseverance to save the black rhino from being poached to extinction.

Meet the spunkiest five sisters of the Bible: Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. The Sisters Z. Orphaned, the Sisters Z have learned to stick together and stand up for their rights as a family.Camped near the River Jordan, the five sisters can almost see the land of Canaan. They look forward to no longer having to live in a tent, but in a real home of stone and clay. One day, Milcah and Tirzah climb Mt. Nebo to get a glimpse of Canaan and overhear Moses explain to the elders that only males will inherit property. The sisters won't inherit their father's parcel of land to build their home. They might even be separated. Outraged, the five sisters go to Moses to plead their case.The Sisters Z don't know they're arguing the first case in history to allow women to inherit land. They just know it's not fair.The Sisters Z is a refreshing retelling of the story of the daughters of Zelphehad. The sisters' personalities sparkle through Rabbi Olitzky and Rabbi Cohen's prose and in the lively illustrations by Lena Tohoff. Children of all ages will cheer as the sisters stand up to Moses for their rightful inheritance of land.

"I'm not like your white women who lose their tongues and wits in a house full of men."So says Catharine Montour to her white captive during the Indian depredations of the 1750s. Catharine Montour, a métis, born during Pennsylvania's Long Peace, is nurtured by her grandmother, the celebrated Madame Montour, an interpreter for the British colonies. Her uncle, Andrew Montour, is also an interpreter and sits on the Council of the Iroquois. The Montours are an unconventional, yet highly regarded family who host diverse and fascinating assemblies of fur traders, missionaries, Indians, and colonial leaders in their home.As the Long Peace ends and the French and Indian War, and eventually the American Revolution occur, Catharine, desiring only to live quietly by a waterfall in New York, becomes a fearless, determined, and passionate leader who demands loyalty to peace in her village and for all. And then in 1779 when General John Sullivan leads the campaign to destroy all Iroquois villages, Queen Catharine, heroically guides her people to Fort Niagara.Today as American exceptionalism prevails against the recognition of indigenous peoples, Catharine's relevant and fact-based story spans two wars and enlightens and makes visible the unwritten truths of early American history.

Jane Angier won't stop helping women, even if it kills her. And it might.Trapped in a granite cell, a nineteenth century midwife awaits her trial for the crime of helping women time their pregnancies. Or is she guilty of something far worse?A trapper's daughter, Jane Angier is a woman of the woods, a free spirit, and a misfit in the Loyalist colony of Queen's Bay, New Brunswick, a beautiful seaside town with ugly secrets. The community is suffering through a set of economic and social disasters. A boatload of Irish immigrants threatens the town with a typhoid epidemic, the bottom has fallen out of the timber trade, and cheap rum turns everyone mean. When Jane loses her family to typhoid, the Queen's Bay midwife takes her on as an apprentice. After Jane takes over the practice, she develops and sells "Jane's Cure for Female Irregularities," a very effective and popular remedy for late periods.Jane's success threatens the poorly trained doctor trying to grow his practice. He is also threatened by Jane's very close relationship with his wife, a brilliant woman mired in a bad marriage. When Jane helps a rape victim abort, the community's powerful men unite to get her out of Queen's Bay, preferably at the end of a rope.Jane's Cure is a harrowing tale of women who dare to exercise control over their bodies as they struggle against the first, but not the last, laws banning abortion.

Meet Yonah, a quirky kid obsessed with fish, who is about to start kindergarten. The day before school starts, Yonah's parents take her to the mikveh, a ritual immersion pool, to mark her transition from preschool to kindergarten. When her brother, who also went to the mikveh when he was starting kindergarten, tells her she'll love the fish at the mikveh, she is excited to go. But when she goes into the pool to dunk, she can't find the fish. Was her brother just teasing? Read Yonah and the Mikveh Fish to find out!Yonah and the Mikveh Fish was born from the desire of Rabbi Haviva Ner-David and Cantor Rachel Stock Spilker, both involved in the open mikveh movement, to introduce the ritual of full body mikveh immersion to children and their families. Mikveh is an experiential and meaningful option for people of all ages to mark transitions, significant occasions, and life cycle events. Over the past twenty years, there has been a mikveh renaissance in the progressive Jewish world. Open community mikvaot (plural of mikveh)-where people can immerse how and when they choose-are popping up around the globe. By following lovable Yonah at the mikveh as she prepares for kindergarten, children and adults will begin, we hope, to imagine going to the mikveh themselves.

cat mac's first collection of poetry, set in Vancouver, B.C. and Mexico, is about a poet growing up in the seventies in a dysfunctional family, who gets out from under negative influences, comes out as a lesbian, and becomes a healthy, happy poet-singer-songwriter. She received the Milieu Emerging Writer's Award for under the influence in 2004.

Dreaming Against the Current is Haviva Ner-David's spiritual, psychological, and emotional journey from Orthodox Jewish feminist activist to post-denominational inter-spiritual rabbi/minister. The journey begins with Haviva's religious crisis as a rabbi in Israel during the summer of "Operation Protective Edge" (the Israeli operation in Gaza in 2014), and ends with her interfaith-interspiritual ordination and certification as a spiritual companion, at Riverside Church in NYC. But it also begins with a restrictive childhood growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home in suburban New York, and ends with her skinny dipping on Yom Kippur morning.Interwoven with her highly personal and profound dream interpretation, Haviva takes us on a deep exploration of her path toward claiming her inner free spirit that had been trying to make herself heard since childhood. She battles anorexia as a teenager; spends years struggling to be ordained as an Orthodox rabbi; dares to evolve while remaining a committed life partner; adopts a child when she already has plenty of biological children; moves to politically complex and highly segregated Israel and raises seven children there with no regular extended family support. All while living with a degenerative genetic muscular disorder.Haviva learns that healing our sacred wounds and believing in unconditional universal Divine Love (for ourselves and others) are the most challenging yet the most vital keys to owning and celebrating our most essential and authentic selves. Dreaming Against the Current will resonate with people searching for their own unique spiritual and general life paths, whether raised in more traditional religious environments and seeking less traditional ways to listen to their souls, or not.

Eliot: Mom, did you know that gender reassignment surgery is covered by Alberta Health & Wellness? Carla: Oh? I don't think I knew that. It is increasingly evident that Eliot is not only autistic, but is also an uncommon girl. Eliot's mother, Carla, recounts their journey down an unfamiliar path riddled with dismissive medical consultations and mental health referrals to clinics with epic waiting lists. Eliot transitions to Ella, with ambitions of being a trophy wife. Her parents attempt to set limits but Ella, in a typically teenage way, resists anything she deems as trying to squelch her true feminine self. Ella is "outed" repeatedly by teachers she trusted and stops attending school. Carla's rage morphs into a motivating sense of injustice and she engages in a successful campaign for her child's civil rights. Carla and Ella are not superheroes, they are just a couple of uncommon girls determined to leave a bumpy road a little smoother for the next travelers.

Hidden in the forest of Sweden, a country church gleams in the sun. The First World War rages on the continent. Anna, in the front pew, refuses to accept the age-old beliefs the village hands her. Sixty years later, she gives refuge to a young niece, whose marriage is falling apart. Fredrik, Anna's lover, is long since dead. She still blames him for the death of their child, yet she misses his scent that would linger on her skin, like the moon that shone on the snow and colored it blue. Every day she visits the child's grave, an old woman in a beret and tweed jacket. Time after time her thoughts return to the past, when she had to go on living, even though all seemed lost.

Amirah Al Wassif's latest English-language collection of poetry explores how women must cope in a culture that suppresses everything in them, even their curiosity. Her words fearlessly display and challenge the impact that the repressive male attitude has on women in the Muslim culture. Amirah Al Wassif's poetry comes from a place that is both deeply personal and universal, because she is the curious girl who has to question everything in her everyday life just to retain her own identity. As Amirah Al Wassif puts it, she was that little girl who used to play hide and seek with her writing ghosts, although the male world used to introduce her as a poor woman who had no right to express herself, she decided to sing out the hidden truth about many women who are deprived of liberty around the world. "I wrote this collection of poems for Catherine, Adel, Christine, Elizabeth, Kristina, Aisha, Zainab and Rachel. For all those who were trapped and who were insulted and who were treated like dolls. I wrote this poetry collection for all of you." How to Bury a Curious Girl is a forbidden song that shivers inside every woman's chest and will resonate with all women from every culture and background.