Hot Wind Boiling Rain: Scary Stories for Strong Hearts is a collection of original creepy tales, contemporary folktale variants with source notes and creative writing ideas.

Folktales from the African American Appalachian tradition. Told by Lyn Ford, one of America’s busiest touring storytellers. The power of Lyn's storytelling comes straight out of her family heritage, which is the content of this, her first book. Here she tells how she learned stories from her father and grandfather—and she includes many of the stories they told her.

The authors and contributors—educators, storytellers, and peacemakers—discuss what each of us can do to promote a more peaceful community, country, and world.

The attraction of scary stories begins very early in childhood, but the fortitude to be truly scared comes later. So where are the scary stories for young children? Educators and storytellers, Ford and Norfolk deliver a silly and gently spooky collection of jumps, laughs, interactive moments, and mostly happy endings to satisfy the curious-for-creepy Pre-K through Grade 4 set. Their weirdly funny and gently scary collection of adapted folktales, original stories, and verses will de...

Lyn Ford, an African-American storyteller honored by her peers nationally retells traditional stories and folkways from her cultural heritage. In addition, she provides readers with insights and historic perspective of these tales by including notes and references to extensive resources regarding the folktales she tells and the history that brought them to us.

I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away. My father was a carpenter, and considered so intelligent and skilful in his trade, that, when buildings out of the common line were to be erected, he was sent for from long distances, to be head workman. On condition of paying his mistress two hundred dollars a year, and supporting himself, he was allowed to work at his trade, and manage his own affairs. His strongest wish was to purchase his childre...

The truly classic Australian story of Tom Kruse - legendary mailman of the Birdsville Track.For the people who lived in the desert between Marree and Birdsville, contact with the outside world was hard and sporadic - but one man was their lifeline: Tom Kruse. For more than twenty years he was the connection with the outside world for the families, station workers and others who lived along the Birdsville Track.Tom delivered everything from the mail and news...

Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland. In 1838 he escaped from slavery and went to New York City, where he married Anna Murray, a free colored woman whom he had met in Baltimore. Soon thereafter he changed his name to Frederick Douglass. In 1841 he addressed a convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket and so greatly impressed the group that they immediately employed him as an agent. He w...

The immortal comedy of Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and their chivalrous misadventures.Entranced by romantic tales of heroism and chivalry, Don Quixote goes on a delusional quest for fame and adventure as a self-proclaimed knight errant. Riding his nag of a horse and wearing a rusty old suit of armor, he roams the countryside with his loyal squire Sancho Panza. Together they encounter an array of unforgettable characters and undertake some of the most famously foolhardy exploits in li...

From New York Times bestselling author Amy Tan, a memoir about finding meaning in life through acts of creativity and imagination. As seen on PBS American Masters "Unintended Memoir."In Where the Past Begins, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement Amy Tan reveals the ways that our memories and personal experiences can inform our creative work. Drawing on her vivid impressions of her upbringing, Tan in...

***“*Wonderful." *—*Michiko Kakutani, New York TimesCelebrating the 20th anniversary of storytelling phenomenon The Moth, 45 unforgettable true stories about risk, courage, and facing the unknown, drawn from the best ever told on their stages**Carefully selected by the creative minds at The Moth, and adapted to the page to preserve the raw energy of live storytelling, All These Wonders features voices both familiar and new. Alongside Meg Wolitzer, John Tur...

This is the definitive guide to writing engagingly about the art of our time. Invaluable for students, arts professionals and other writers, it brims with practical tips that range across the full spectrum of art-writing including academic essays; press releases and news articles; texts for auction and exhibition catalogues, gallery guides and wall labels; op-ed journalism and exhibition reviews and writing for websites and blogs. Gilda Williams, a London correspondent for Artforum, points...