A Southern Weave of Women is one of the first sustained treatments of the generation women writers who came of age in the post-World War II South as well as one of the first to situate southern literature fully within a multicultural context

This collection of critical essays examines the contributions to and influences on literature that have been made by Southern women writers.--From publisher description.

Sally G. McMillen summarizes the latest thinking about the lives of women in the South, both white and black, elite and ordinary. One of the best features of the book is the author's ability to weave the lives of all these women together in the same chapters. The excellent introduction is followed by four chapters on Family Life and Marriage, Reproduction and Childrearing, Social Concerns: Education and Religion, and Women at Work. McMillen points out that many myths still surround antebellum Southern women. They were much more complicated people than the women portrayed in many novels and histories. Of course, they cannot be lumped into one group as they differed according to time, region, race, and class, but all were influenced by living in a rural, agricultural, slave society. In this society women were supposed to be submissive and hardworking and devoted to the family and home; each person had a place and women were supposed to know theirs. -- Amazon.com.

An intertwining tale of love, laughter, heartbreak, and the roots of strong Southern women.  Pauline Smith, a retired insurance processor, is comfortable in her habits and her home. She is a born worrier with strong opinions and believes in family taking care of family. When her mother is injured in a fall, Pauline and her sister Perk must move Mama from their childhood home in Roanoke, Virginia to an assisted living complex in Richmond, where they live. As she is confronted with her mother's frail health, Pauline struggles to confront her own fear of death and the grief she's harbored since her father died when she was a child. Family Weave's richly voiced characters tell of ordinary lives with extraordinary humor and tragedy, weaving us in and out of family history, showing us how not only to survive, but how to celebrate life.

Essays on contemporary women writers of the South: Margaret Walker, Mary Lee Settle, Ellen Douglas, Elizabeth Spencer, Joan Williams, Maya Angelou, Shirley Ann Grau, Doris Betts, Sonia Sanchez, Gail Godwin, Sylvia Wilkinson, Anne Tyler, Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Lee Smith.

In this innovative study, Sarah Hill illuminates the history of Southeastern Cherokee women by examining changes in their basketry. She explores how the incorporation of each new material used in their craft occurred in the context of lived experience, ecological processes, social conditions, economic circumstances, and historical eras. 110 illustrations. 6 maps.

Many of America’s foremost, and most beloved, authors are also southern and female: Mary Chesnut, Kate Chopin, Ellen Glasgow, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Harper Lee, Maya Angelou, Anne Tyler, Alice Walker, and Lee Smith, to name several. Designating a writer as “southern” if her work reflects the region’s grip on her life, Carolyn Perry and Mary Louise Weaks have produced an invaluable guide to the richly diverse and enduring tradition of southern women’s literature. Their comprehensive history—the first of its kind in a relatively young field—extends from the pioneer woman to the career woman, embracing black and white, poor and privileged, urban and Appalachian perspectives and experiences. The History of Southern Women’s Literature allows readers both to explore individual authors and to follow the developing arc of various genres across time. Conduct books and slave narratives; Civil War diaries and letters; the antebellum, postbellum, and modern novel; autobiography and memoirs; poetry; magazine and newspaper writing—these and more receive close attention. Over seventy contributors are represented here, and their essays discuss a wealth of women’s issues from four centuries: race, urbanization, and feminism; the myth of southern womanhood; preset images and assigned social roles—from the belle to the mammy—and real life behind the facade of meeting others’ expectations; poverty and the labor movement; responses to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the influence of Gone with the Wind. The history of southern women’s literature tells, ultimately, the story of the search for freedom within an “insidious tradition,” to quote Ellen Glasgow. This teeming volume validates the deep contributions and pleasures of an impressive body of writing and marks a major achievement in women’s and literary studies.

Selected as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Selected as an Outstanding Reference Source by the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association There are many anthologies of southern literature, but this is the first companion. Neither a survey of masterpieces nor a biographical sourcebook, The Companion to Southern Literature treats every conceivable topic found in southern writing from the pre-Columbian era to the present, referencing specific works of all periods and genres. Top scholars in their fields offer original definitions and examples of the concepts they know best, identifying the themes, burning issues, historical personalities, beloved icons, and common or uncommon stereotypes that have shaped the most significant regional literature in memory. Read the copious offerings straight through in alphabetical order (Ancestor Worship, Blue-Collar Literature, Caves) or skip randomly at whim (Guilt, The Grotesque, William Jefferson Clinton). Whatever approach you take, The Companion’s authority, scope, and variety in tone and interpretation will prove a boon and a delight. Explored here are literary embodiments of the Old South, New South, Solid South, Savage South, Lazy South, and “Sahara of the Bozart.” As up-to-date as grit lit, K Mart fiction, and postmodernism, and as old-fashioned as Puritanism, mules, and the tall tale, these five hundred entries span a reach from Lady to Lesbian Literature. The volume includes an overview of every southern state’s belletristic heritage while making it clear that the southern mind extends beyond geographical boundaries to form an essential component of the American psyche. The South’s lavishly rich literature provides the best means of understanding the region’s deepest nature, and The Companion to Southern Literature will be an invaluable tool for those who take on that exciting challenge. Description of Contents 500 lively, succinct articles on topics ranging from Abolition to Yoknapatawpha 250 contributors, including scholars, writers, and poets 2 tables of contents — alphabetical and subject — and a complete index A separate bibliography for most entries

A Southern Belle Primer meets The Rules in this engaging volume that explains the mystique of Southern women and why they always get what they want, and shows women how to get the same kind of romantic, professional, and personal success.