Knox Thompson thinks he's working a hustle, but it's a hustle that's working him. Trying to keep his pizza shop and parents afloat, he cleans out a backroom Kentucky poker game, only to be roped into dealing marijuana by the proprietor-an arrangement Knox only halfheartedly resists. Knox's shop makes the perfect front for this operation, but his supplier turns out to be violent and calculating, and Knox ends up under this thumb. It's not long before more than just the pizza shop is at risk.

"In this exciting new anthology, Wesley Brown and Aimee K. Michel bring together six wonderfully teachable plays by some of the greatest American women dramatists of the past fifty years-- Ntozake Shange, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, Beth Henley, and Susan Yankowitz. The editors provide a helpful Introduction to the last 100 years of theatrical activity, from suffrage and anti-lynching plays, through the explosive 1960s, to recent Broadway triumphs, highlighting women's struggle-a struggle that continues--to put their vision and voices on the American stage." Elin Diamond, Rutgers University, USA This volume celebrates the iconoclastic power of six American women playwrights who pushed the boundaries of the form outside the box of conventional drama. Each play is accompanied by a short introduction providing the biographical background of the playwright as well as discussing the dramatic style of her writing, the extent to which her work is informed by major playwrights of the period, and how the specific work illustrates the overarching themes of her body of work. The plays included are: Gun by Susan Yankowitz Spell #7: geechee jibara quik magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people by Ntozake Shange The Jacksonian by Beth Henley The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage

A young schooner bum, thrilled by the ways of a windjammer, resolves to acquire his own boat and follow the sea in search of pals and gals and utopian freedom. It is the mid 1950s, he is in his early twenties, and while building his own boat he rather suddenly finds himself to be a family man. Undeterred, he and his bride, now five and a half months pregnant, sail out through the Golden Gate in an experimental contraption and turn left for Mexico. They don't know it at the time, and they wouldn't have cared, but their tiny boat is the first three-hulled watercraft to go to sea in modern times. Soon the author becomes an unintended "instant expert" in what would become, fifty years later, an absolute sea change in marine architecture. This work in two volumes tells of those fifty years, of the people, the boats, the foibles and the fables, the history and lore that - despite a sometimes fierce resistance from the Corinthian community - comprise the origins of today's modern catamarans, trimarans and proas. Told as the memoir of a septuagenarian sea dog whose failing eyesight causes him to "see" his memories, Jim Brown recounts the multihull milestones of the 1950s to the 70s (Volume One) and the 1970s into the new millennium (Volume Two). He highlights the pivotal multihull pioneers, and relates the controversial advent and eventual ascendance of multihulls today, with their implications for tomorrow. However, this rich nautical heritage runs as but a thread through the fabric of how the multihull phenomenon shapes the lives of the writer and his family and friends. His obsession is fulfilled in ways far different from his youthful promise to himself.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

Some essays are personal accounts of teaching experiences and reflect on the meaning of Douglass to students being educated in America. Others offer lesson plans for teaching Douglass with samples of student poems and narratives inspired by the readings. Contributors include Lorenzo Thomas, Margot Fortunato Galt, Ron Padgett, and Marvin Hoffman. [Christina Davis, Chris Edgar and Ron Padgett collaborate on a comprehensive outline for teaching writing through Douglass' Narrative, entitled Thirty-Two Writing Ideas Using Douglass' Narrative. The exercises are appropriate for all levels of education, and there are between one and nine ideas for each chapter, with the emphasis being on chapters two, seven, and ten. [There are many detailed lesson plans and astute observations that make Opal Palmer Adisa's essay a lovely read. Her work with upper elementary - high school students focuses on using the narrative to incite students to write about their own lives, but the emphasis for Adisa is not only on Douglass. She weaves in texts from the Harlem Renaissance and Sojourner Truth to cultivate a more complete sense of the Black struggle to which Douglass speaks. [Margot Fortunate Galt designs her essay for upper elementary through high school students learning the ballad. From the beginning of her essay, Galt concisely establishes time frames for her lessons, with steps, goals and ideas for incorporating music and performance. The attention she pays to meter, rhyme, and syntax shows in the care her students put into their own poems. [Lorenzo Thomas' account of his students' touching reception of Douglass is a joyful reminder of why we teach and value the written word. While there are no "lessonplans" in this entry, Thomas is sure to inspire many teachers with his reflections and analysis of Douglass' work. [Charles Kuner approaches teaching to write historical letters and map stories in the bilingual classroom with thoughtfulness and respect for his students. His own stories about how meaningful Douglass' words and experiences were to them are enforced by samples of their writing. This essay is about his high school students, but it could be interpreted for any level. [A delightful account of teaching Douglass to a group of inner city eleventh graders, Marvin Hoffman shares how he gathers the efforts of his students to savor the text through reading aloud and composing a letter to Douglass' mother. Student samples included.

In this rich and diverse collection, three dozen 20th-century writers muse about their experiences in and observations of America. Though the essays are organized in rough chronological fashion, some emphasize place (Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on Bensonhurst, Michael Stephens on Hawaii), others identity (Richard Rodriguez on language, Eva Hoffman on "postmodern uncertainty"), others the immigrant experience (Bharati Mukherjee) or the changing times (Joan Didion on the 1960s, James Farmer on the civil rights movement). Some Americans must leave home to find insights (June Jordan in the Bahamas), while some non-Americans come here to observe, such as the Palestinian Anton Shammas (who sees the country as big enough to contain the "portable homelands" brought by immigrants). Amidst the play of ideas and emotions surrounding ethnicity and identity, essays by Wendell Berry and Gretel Ehrlich celebrate the enduring truths of the land.

Thirty-six writers of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds explore the specific tensions of being American with roots in another culture and also address historical moments which have defined American life during this century the battle at Wounded Knee, the Second World War, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War, among them. Powerful, first-person accounts, they follow different paths. But each one is driven by the deep need to bear witness and to bring coherence to personal and collective experience. The contributors are: James Baldwin, Wendell Berry, Carlos Bulosan, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Joan Didion, W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles Alexander Eastman, Gretel Ehrlich, James Farmer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mary Gordon, Vivian Gornick, Jessica Hagedon, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Eva Hoffman, June Jordan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Kim Yong Ik, Ron Kovic, Paule Marshall, Pablo Medina, N. Scott Momaday, Bharati Mukherjee, Geoffrey O'Brien, Gregory Orfalea, Sonia Pilcer, Mario Puzo, Jonathan Raban, Adrienne Rich, Richard Rodriguez, Anton Shammas, Monica Stone, Gary Soto, Michael Stephens, Sui Sin Far, and Anzia Yezierska. Visions of America is the nonfiction companion to Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land, also edited by Wesley Brown and Amy Ling.