Showing results for "The Original Story" in Politics & Activism

Raising a seven-year-old daughter and caring for a newborn, single mother Stephanie Land tries her best to persevere through fatigue, hunger, a depleted food stamp balance, and a bank account hovering around ten dollars. Not to mention postpartum hormones, anxiety over finding suitable housing, and the fear of defeat in the battle of fulfilling her children’s needs and forging her own identity as a writer. With the help of a community of friends and her own steely will, Stephanie is determined to find a way forward to a life that can afford her family hope and joy.

Maggi Peirce writes, "In everybody's mind there are memories that cannot be erased. In my last semester at Southeastern Massachusetts University, Dr. Norman Rehg asked that we write a story weekly. The entire class groaned. 'Now, now, don't fuss,' he said. 'All I want is an anecdote.' The word anecdote made all the difference, and I...haven't looked back since." These autobiographical stories sketch the world Maggi inhabited in her Belfast childhood in the 1930s and 1940s. That world is gone, but the feelings and experiences speak a universal language that resonates even today. The collection includes "A Friend of My Father's," "The Lucky Package," "The Most Beautiful Doll in the World," "John Knox," "Mine Hut Er Hat Drei Ecken," "The Haunted House," and "The Awakening."

When the black comedian first meets the beloved Sicilian grandfather of his Italian American girlfriend, Melissa, the wrong sparks fly. The most important member of her large family shuns Kamau. What follows is a bracing, true account of conflict and patience, in-laws and family heirlooms, as Melissa and Kamau deal with cold shoulders, rejection, and finally resolution.

Childhood friends from Trinidad, Colin Warner and Carl King grew into men on opposite sides of prison bars after Colin was arrested for murder in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. With no evidence against him, Colin was wrongfully convicted and wrongfully imprisoned for more than two decades. But time and walls could not break the friends' bond. Carl's extraordinary resolve, sacrifice, and courage were Colin's last rays of hope in a harrowing struggle for freedom and justice.

Few things illustrate the magnetism of the Kennedy era like Marilyn Monroe co-headlining the President's massive birthday fundraiser, and suggestively crooning "Happy Birthday." But only a privileged few know what happened months earlier, when the two icons spent a weekend at a private summit hosted by Bing Crosby, and later, after the New York extravaganza, at the top secret, invitation-only midnight affair at a millionaire's Manhattan town house.

It is the basic philosophy not only of the senator from Arizona, but a constantly growing number of Americans dissatisfied with an ever-expanding welfare state and a compromising foreign policy. This record is a narrative of the Goldwater political phenomenon. It includes recorded statements about Barry Goldwater as well as Actual excerpts from the senator's own speeches.

In this powerful essay, the mother of Trayvon Martin shares her grief, reflections, anger, and hope in the wake of a single unforgivable moment that catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement.