Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press When Edmund Creffield and his "Holy Roller" religious cult made headlines in 1903, it was page one news - not just in the Pacific Northwest, but around the nation. Yet few people in the region today have heard Creffield's name or his story. In fact, the descendants of the people who were involved still refuse to discuss those events of a century ago.

Rock music today is universal and its popular history is well known. Yet few know how and why it really came about. Taking a fresh look at events long overlooked or misunderstood, this book tells how some of the most disenfranchised people in a free and prosperous nation strove to make themselves heard--and changed the world. Describing the genesis of rock and roll, the author covers everything from its deep roots in the Mississippi Delta, key early figures, like deejay "Daddy-O" Dewey Phillips and gospel star Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and the influence of so-called "holy rollers" of the Pentecostal church who became crucial performers--Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press When Edmund Creffield and his "Holy Roller" religious cult made headlines in 1903, it was page one news - not just in the Pacific Northwest, but around the nation. Yet few people in the region today have heard Creffield's name or his story. In fact, the descendants of the people who were involved still refuse to discuss those events of a century ago.

From #1 Essence bestselling author ReShonda Tate Billingsley, a touching and funny story of faith, love, and tenacious friendship. Lifelong friends Coco, Nita, and Tia are fed up with their bad luck in love. The beautiful and demure Coco has endured years of physical abuse from her boyfriend but can’t seem to drum up the courage to leave him. Tia, a single mother, has dated her fair share of slackers and cheaters and yearns for a stable companion who will be a father figure to her son. Meanwhile, the feisty and seductive Nita is getting fed up with her club-hopping lifestyle and wants to settle down. She just has to find someone worth coming home to. Tia decides to take action and encourages Nita and Coco to try a new approach—holy rolling. Masquerading as God-fearing churchgoers, the three women don their Sunday best and attend a local conference for ministers, hoping to find reliable, responsible men. Their results are varied—Nita settles down quickly with Marshall, a hot young minister who she loves but whose lifestyle proves too sedate for her tastes. Tia thinks she has met the perfect man, only to discover he has a fiancée waiting for him in Atlanta. And Nita finds the man of her dreams and, most importantly, the courage to stand up for herself. In her signature style, ReShonda Tate Billingsley once again combines spiritual themes and real-life drama in a compelling story of humor, heart, and hope that her fans are sure to relish.

Recounts the author's childhood as an organist's daughter for tent revivalist David Terrell, describing her witness to his mass "miracles" and his morally corrupt activities behind the scenes.

"Holy Rollers"—with this epithet most people dismiss members of the Pentecostal sect as wild religious fanatics. In this new study, folklorist Elaine Lawless draws on fieldwork among Pentecostal congregations in the limestone region of southern Indiana to offer a sympathetic view of the Pentecostals as a special group distinguished by their own folk traditions and religious expression. From her findings she describes the members' codes of dress and behavior, their attitudes toward themselves and others, their special use of words, and their distinctive religious practices. Focusing on the activity of a particular church, she then analyzes the structure of the service and shows how its elements—singing, praying, testifying, preaching, and speaking in tongues—exhibit, not a formless display of fervor, but rather an ordered and traditional sequence that creates a unique religious expression. Important to the study is the attention given the role of women. Although the Pentecostal interpretation of Biblical teachings accords men dominance, women occasionally preach in the church and during the testifying part of the service they are often able to exercise control and religious authority. Many of the women have relatives in the dangerous work of the limestone quarries, and for these women the personal experience and close relationship fostered by the Pentecostal church, Lawless finds, offers welcome emotional support. This readable study affords a new understanding of one Pentecostal sect and an appreciation of the role of women in fundamentalist religious practices.

Parker Welles, a single mother whose family has just lost everything, finds love in an unexpected place when she travels to Maine to sell her lone possession, a decrepit house in need of repair.

Arriving on the music scene in 2003, the Kings of Leon embarked on a sex, drug and booze-fuelled rampage through the London music and fashion scene, never afraid to reveal all to the press and somehow surviving to tell the tale. Joel McIver's new book, the first ever Kings of Leon biography, digs deep into their history to reveal a band like no other.

Meggie was a weird teenager. We're talkin' so weird that her parents worried about her being too religious. After a divine nudge to preach at the age of thirteen, she answered the call to full-time ministry as a sixteen-year-old. She became a paid church staff member a year later, and from 18-32, served in the same church. While creating sacred space for others, Meggie forgot to nurture her own. In the rush of ministerial leadership, she allowed many limiting beliefs to hold her back. She searched for validation from others but failed to look within and find that she was already enough. These pages tell her satirical, yet "holy," tale of discovering that because the Divine dwells within, she already possesses enough grace for every wound and enough grit for every goal. She now offers this gift to you, to encourage you toward the same end. You, yes, all of you, are your own sanctuary. Part memoir, part self-help book, and part spiritual devotional, Meggie will make you laugh, disrupt your thought-patterns, and above all else, empower you to become that which you were meant to be--a sanctuarium tuum. (If you want to know what that means, ya gotta read the book!)

Derived from interviews with a wide range of people who experienced or observed New York's 1991 Crown Heights racial riots, Fires In The Mirror is as distinguished a work of commentary on black-white tensions as it is a work of drama. In August 1991 simmering tensions in the racially polarized Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Crown Heights exploded into riots after a black boy was killed by a car in a rabbi's motorcade and a Jewish student was slain by blacks in retaliation. Fires in the Mirror is dramatist Anna Deavere Smith's stunning exploration of the events and emotions leading up to and following the Crown Heights conflict. Through her portrayals of more than two dozen Crown eights adversaries, victims, and eyewitnesses, using verbatim excerpts from their observations derived from interviews she conducted, Smith provides a brilliant, Rashoman-like documentary portrait of contemporary ethnic turmoil.