Globalization and transnationalism have reshaped our communities and their borderlines. Communities exceed fixed boundaries, existing instead in the liminal spaces where narratives intersect, clash, or cooperate. These liminal spaces-physical and virtual, local and global-provide opportunities for diversifying discussions on diaspora, cultural hybridity, and ethnic identity. Ethnic women writers make significant contributions to this dialogue regarding the reconfiguration of people and their perimeters. A multigenre and multicultural text, Community Boundaries and Border Crossings explores the novels, short stories, essays, autobiographies, testimonios, plays, poems, and hybrid poetics of established and emerging ethnic women writers. This collection of critical essays highlights the new zones of cultural contact and exchange that are defining the twenty-first century. Each chapter reflects an awareness of cultural changes and challenges, engaging readers in a richly productive conversation concerning the interconnectedness of border crossings and community boundaries.

Fiction. "Like the magician in one of his stories, Robert Miltner makes things appear and disappear, amusing and unsettling us at once. These are provocative narratives of working people with all the punch of wit and all the lyricism of poetry... If you're looking for plot twists and engaging ambiguity, here they are. If you're looking for open endings, characters you may live next door to, or may have had a drink with, or an affair with, or may have heard tell of, here they are. If you're looking for poignant and wry situations cast as sudden fictions and prose poems, you'll want to read AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING."--Richard Hague