Book Signing

My Mother Wears Combat Boots: A Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us
Jessica Mills will read from her new book, My Mother Wears Combat Boots ( AK Press, 2007)

Author Event: Amanda Marcotte and It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments

Drawing on her personal experiences of dealing with anti-feminists—from her years of blogging about feminism and living in the woman-unfriendly state of Texas—Marcotte brings her wit and distinct lack of patience to the topic of surviving while feminist. She doles out priceless advice along the way on how not only survive but also thrive, and even how to carve out a space for your feminist self in these oft-times hostile environments.

About Amanda Marcotte

Plain View Press Group Reading

MonkeyWrench Books is pleased to announce a reading of works by three Plain View Press authors.

Madeleine Mysko will read from, Bringing Vincent Home, a Vietnam-era novel told by the mother of a soldier who returns home with serious burns. A real and riveting portrayal of the burn ward victims and their families.

H. Palmer Hall will read from Coming to Terms, a collection of autobiographical essays with focus on his experiences during the Vietnam War.

Susan Bright will read from The Layers of Our Seeing and other poems.

For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865 is the historical narrative of the African American fight for job equality and organized labor’s (often inadequate) response to their demands. Zieger, an award-winning historian of labor in the US, examines the employment struggles of African Americans from the abolition of slavery to the present and argues that the availability of jobs was the cornerstone on which the concept of freedom hinged.

Robert H. Zieger is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Florida and the author of several books, including American Workers, American Unions; The CIO, 1935–1955; and John L. Lewis: Labor Leader.

Battling the Plantation Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle

A Reading and signing by Laurie B. Green

Laurie Green explores the notion of African American 'freedom' in postwar Memphis. She demonstrates that the civil rights movement was battling an ongoing 'plantation mentality' based on race, gender, and power that permeated southern culture long before--and even after--the groundbreaking legislation of the mid-1960s. She points to the Memphis sanitation workers strike, with its slogan "I AM a Man!," as a clarion example of how the movement fought for a black freedom that consisted of not only constitutional rights but also social and human rights.

Laurie B. Green is assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.

Come grab your copy of Ben Snakepit’s new compilation of years 4-6. and find out what Snakepit has been up to lately.

The Post-Katrina Portraits book reading
Editor and artist Francesco di Santis stayed after the “mandatory
evacuation” and documented the stories of those affected by Katrina and
Rita for 13 months. He will read a selection of stories from this
awe-inspiring project.

Girls Make Media:
Zines, Films and Websites
a critical discussion of the rise of girls' media production in contemporary U.S. society.

Girls Make Media analyses girls' films, zines, and websites, as well as girl media-makers and the various social sites where their work is supported. This book explores how media production enables girls' creative expression while also facilitating experimentation with their identities and access to the public sphere.

Girls Make Media reclaims the marginalized history of girls' cultural practices by concentrating on the connections between various forms of media produced by female youth today and girls' historical involvement in domestic arts and written culture.

Mary Celeste Kearney is Ass’t Professor of Radio-Television-Film at UT- Austin. She specializes in girls' media culture. She is author of Girls Make Media (Routledge, 2006), and her essays have appeared in Cultural Studies and Feminist Media Studies. She is also director of Cinemakids, a program for inspiring young filmmakers.