The twenty-three distinguished writers included in From Curlers to Chainsaws: Women and Their Machines invite machines into their lives and onto the page. In every room and landscape these writers occupy, gadgets that both stir and stymie may be found: a Singer sewing machine, a stove, a gun, a vibrator, a prosthetic limb, a tractor, a Dodge Dart, a microphone, a smartphone, a stapler, a No. 1 pencil and, of course, a curling iron and a chainsaw.From Curlers to Chainsaw...

Like most children, I used to keep a diary full of mundane happenings, which seemed so important at the time but are now lost forever. By the time I was a teenager, the futility of these little jottings became obvious, and I dropped the habit. After all, even though it was wartime, there were other things to do—nights out with the boys from the company, a vague interest in the female species and a large interest in consuming many pints of whatever ghastly brew was available in the local ho...

Poems for Middle and High School StudentsRead by Connie Dangel and Martin Siemienski

"A broad sampling of deeply impressive writings—essays, memoirs, poetry, letters, stories—by women from the Southern Highlands." — Kirkus ReviewsWinner of the 1997 Appalachian Studies AwardAppalachian Writers Association 1999 Book of the YearWinner of the Susan Koppleman Award of the Popular Culture Association for Best Edited Collection in Women's StudiesThirty-five women writers from ...